With a grand flourish, Aunt Mary waved her appreciation away. “Think nothing of it. Abebi will show you to your room.”
A moment later, the African woman who delivered the tea service appeared, her expression solemn. She nodded to Christina and turned for the stairs.
“Sleep well, darling,” Mary called out. “We shall begin on your future tomorrow.”
* * *
Drex tore through the door joining his cabin to Lilli’s. Gone, along with her valise of belongings. Damn her!
He’d worried when she wasn’t on deck, when he had not located her in the galley with Pauly or in the ratlines with Davie. Now, both his cabin and hers stood empty.
Why? He’d promised to row her ashore.
Yes, but had he intended to keep that promise?
This morning’s docking had forced Drex to face some unpleasant truths, chief among them that he would miss Lilli. A part of him didn’t want her to say good-bye and walk out of his life. Why, he didn’t know. He didn’t have time to tolerate her reckless behavior, which reminded him too much of his twin.
Besides, finding and rescuing Ryan should be his focus.
But Lilli could have at least said farewell before fleeing.
Slamming the door behind him, Drex bounded up to the poop deck. When he learned who had taken Lilli ashore without his permission, he would string the bastard up. If he had harmed a hair on her golden head, the man should consider himself dead.
-104-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Who took Lillianne ashore?” He enunciated each syllable in the modulated tones of controlled anger.
Hancock approached and muttered, “That be me, Cap’n. The girl was wanting to leave. I thought it best, so ye could focus on the ship and her crew again, like before. But—”
“You defied my wishes.”
“Aye, but—”
“I had plans to see her ashore myself.” He raked a hand through his long, disheveled hair. “I intended to see her safely to her destination.”
“Which I did,” Hancock said. “But I think ye should know something else.”
At Hancock’s pause, Drex shouted, “Get on with it, then.”
The little man swallowed, increasing Drex’s alarm. “Lilli had me deliver her to the door of Saint Mary’s.”
Drex opened his mouth to deny Hancock’s assertion, but no words came forth. The infamous Saint Mary’s? The brothel? Not possible. Not his Lilli.
But hadn’t she been prepared to jump from the bed of her deranged lover and into his own?
No, she wasn’t the kind of woman to sell her soul, or any part of herself, to a stranger—to anyone. Lilli was determined to make her own path, and he doubted she intended to make it on her back. Then what the hell was she doing there?
“And you left her there?” Drex exploded.
“The lass was eager to be inside, but said to say good-bye.”
“Did anyone greet her?”
Hancock shrugged. “I didn’t stay to see.”
Panic churned his gut. “Did she say what she intended to do at Saint Mary’s?”
“She said she’d come to live with èr aunt.”
Her aunt? Confusion and anxiety warred with anger. Had Lilli lost all her remaining faculties? He sighed, grasping for rational thought. Did a woman who believed she was going to live with a relative expect to employ herself in
-105-
Shelley Bradley
Grand Bahamas’ most expensive and dissolute bordello? Usually not, but with Lilli, anything was possible.
Still, what if she needed him?
His emotions thickened into a rock of determination. Lilli had proven time and again that she didn’t think about her actions, that she needed guidance.
He knew there existed a very real chance she didn’t know what went on at Saint Mary’s. After all, if she had merely aspired to sell her body for a living, she could have done so in England, or on his ship even. Yes, she had admitted to having a lover, but that hardly made Lilli a whore.
Damn it, now what was he supposed to do?
* * *
Christina set aside the tray on which Abebi had delivered her meal and left her appointed room. The scents of perfume and some earthier musk hung in the air, so thick even the tropical gales streaming through the open window couldn’t disguise them. From behind the closed door down the hall, she heard a man groan. An unusual sound in the midst of the chatting revelry downstairs, to be sure. Perhaps he was ill.
Shrugging, she crept closer to the stairs and peered down into the press of bodies occupying her aunt’s home. A bevy of beautiful women conversed with men of all ages. Nothing so unusual, she supposed, except the shocking attire of the ladies. Dresses cut scandalously low, exposing a dangerous amount of bosom. The island gentry certainly did observe lax standards.
She searched about for Aunt Mary. Instead, her gaze encountered a woman adorned in a vibrant shade of green. Her dress possessed a slit from ankle to knee, exposing most of her leg when she walked. In deference to the heat?
Men all around the room leered at her and the others. Little wonder, Christina supposed, given the way the local women attired themselves. Still, if she had any hope of belonging to their free society, she must stop thinking like a London miss.
-106-
The Lady and the Dragon
A man circulating within the crowd gained her attention. His back faced her. But those wide shoulders, that dark hair, bisected by a knot of black silk, could only belong to one man.
The Black Dragon.
A redhead in a copper-hued dress approached him, her bosom exposed like some of the fast women her grandmother had warned her to avoid. The woman spoke, leaning close to the captain. He said something in return, which the redhead answered by shaking her head and placing a hand on his shoulder.
Christina stared, mouth gaping open at the pair. If the woman exhaled, they’d be touching in a most scandalous way!
He dipped his head closer and spoke again. As the woman swayed yet closer and the conversation continued, Christina felt fury rise up within her.
How dare he! The man had made her feel something for him. She clenched her fists at her sides. She had been prepared to make him her lover. How quickly he had cast her aside to flirt with a woman she would hardly call a lady.
Well, she would just let him know what she thought of him. The brute. The knave!
Lifting her skirts, Christina marched down the stairs and headed directly for the captain. Before she could reach him, she was waylaid by a paunch-bellied man with bleary eyes, holding what couldn’t possibly be his first glass of brandy.
“Well, m’dear. Don’t believe I’ve see you before.”
“I’ve just come from London. If you’ll excuse me—”
“Don’t rush away. I couldn’t bear to lose a tempting morsel like you tonight.
Why don’t we—”
“Why don’t you leave her alone?” said a voice Christina recognized instantly.
“I saw her first,” the man argued, then turned to look at the competition.
The instant fear on the older man’s face was nearly comical.
And grew more frightful when the Black Dragon reached for the dagger at his side. “She belongs to me.”
-107-
Shelley Bradley
Immediately, the drunkard backed away quickly, stumbling over his own feet in his haste to get away. “O—of course.”
“I would have dispatched him on my own, thank you,” she said stiffly.
He stared at her a fathomless moment. His gaze told her he had a million thoughts to voice, yet he remained mute. Why had he come here? To say good bye? Her chest ached with fresh hurt.
He grabbed her arm and led her toward the stairs. “We need to talk privately.”
His tone sounded familiar—and forceful. Couldn’t he once just be a man, instead of an autocrat? She twisted and jerked her arm, trying to free herself from his grasp. “I will not have you order me about like a child any longer. I am not on your ship and I no longer have to respond to your orders.”
“Shut up, Lilli, and listen to me.”
The urgency of his voice quieted Christina. He was obviously concerned about something.
“Do you want a new lover so badly that you would come here to find one?”
he asked. “If you’re that damned adamant about having one, why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?” His question made no sense. How did they leap from his dictatorial order-giving all the way to her contemplation of taking a lover? “I have no idea what you mean, and if finding a lover were foremost on my mind, you would be last on my list.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Where do you think you are?”
“At my Aunt Mary’s house.”
“Mary is your aunt?” His astonishment was thick.
“Of course.” Did he know her, too?
“And you’ve come to live here? On purpose?”
“And to learn her business, yes,” Christina replied, frowning. “What is this about?”
“You want to be a whore?”
-108-
The Lady and the Dragon
Christina’s jaw dropped to her chest. “What a horrible thing to say! Just because my aunt is an independent woman with her own business does not make her a—a woman of loose morals.”
“Damn it.” The captain pulled on her arm and drew her closer. “Do you mean to tell me you have no idea that your aunt is the most notorious madam in the Caribbean?”
“That’s ludicrous. She runs a social club.”
“That happens to sell female companionship by the hour.”
Christina jerked her arm from his grasp. “I will not listen to this another instant! I have no idea why you insist on feeding me these lies, but I will not be controlled by you or any man. I mean to make my own way in life, just as Aunt Mary does.”
She turned away and mounted the first stair. The captain hooked an arm about her waist and drew her back. “Look around you. Do you see women dressed like this in London? They stand damn close and touch the men in a very familiar manner.”
Christina closed her eyes stubbornly. “No, I won’t look or listen anymore, either. I’m happy here and I refuse to let you spoil it.”
He shook her. “Open your eyes, damn it.”
She did, intent on expressing her displeasure. A woman with her arm wound through that of a well-dressed man passed them and mounted the stairs.
“Where do you think they’re going?” he whispered furiously.
She drew herself up and squared her shoulders. “Just because you choose to give the most lascivious meaning to a simple stroll, does not mean I must.”
“They’re going to her bedroom!” he insisted.
The man thought he knew everything! Infuriated, Christina tried her best to look down her nose at the captain. “I don’t care. You are not welcome here any longer, and you certainly are not welcome to meddle in my life.”
“Come, dear,” her aunt’s familiar voice chastised gently. “You are hardly being polite to our esteemed guest.” She turned to the captain. “I’m honored to finally have the Black Dragon beneath my roof. You’ve met my niece?”
-109-
Shelley Bradley
He nodded coolly. “I brought her here from England.”
“My, what a noble gesture from such a feared man. Did she pay you properly for your trouble?”
Christina’s eyes widened as she watched the captain’s jaw flex tightly. “I declined.”
Mary’s expression conveyed intrigue. “Should you change your mind, I suggest you return in three days. Make yourself comfortable, if you care to…occupy yourself until then.”
Before Christina could say a word, sputter her questions about the entire bizarre conversation, Mary took her arm and swept her up the stairs and into her room.
-110-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Eight
The next afternoon, Christina took her tea on the veranda, determined to enjoy the breeze. She peered down the hill to the docks. A collection of ships stood at anchor in the port’s calm blue waters. Was The Dragon’s Lair one of those ships?
It hardly mattered if he had left her behind. His suggestion last night had been insulting in the extreme. Her aunt, a madam? He insisted on taking the worst view of others. She was better rid of him, and soon her heart would know it, too.
Her aunt opened the door and stepped onto the veranda, looking much like a woman who had just awakened, despite the late hour. She rubbed her pale eyes.
“Good morning, or I suppose, afternoon.” Mary chuckled. “Forgive my lateness. I’m not one for early hours.”
Christina smiled. “I confess I was the same in London.”
“Of course.” She touched Christina’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come inside.
I think we should discuss your future.”
A bout of apprehension knotted her stomach as she followed Mary through the drawing room and passed the dining room. Now that her freedom had arrived, apprehension gripped her. Though Aunt Mary hid her fatigue well, the fact her club had not closed until the wee hours of the morning served as an indicator that her aunt worked hard. Could Christina be as successful?
They finally halted inside an enchanting room decorated in pale blue and white. Flowered pillows rested at each corner of the sky-hued sofa. Tassels of gold added extra accents. Mary threw open the window, which overlooked a vast expanse of ocean. A salty breeze drifted in, contenting Christina.
-111-
Shelley Bradley
Mary motioned her into a Queen Anne chair upholstered in a creamy shade of yellow, then sat behind a dainty writing desk.
“Have you given your future a great deal of thought?” her aunt asked.
“Oh, yes. I so want to be independent, to make my own choices, experience all that life has to offer.”
“Of course you do,” Mary quickly agreed. “But the reality is not an easy one.
How do you expect to support yourself?”
Christina frowned, realizing she hadn’t figured that out yet. “I suppose I hoped you might teach me about your vocation. I, too, could run a social club, I should think.”
“You could, in time. It takes some…practice to learn how to please your guests. And you must have money for your own house, but I’m getting ahead of myself.” She smiled and shifted in her chair. “I considered supporting you myself, to shield you from the reality of life’s difficulties, but—”
“Oh, no. I truly want my own independence, which you said meant facing the good and bad, and overcoming them in spite.”
Mary nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I did say that.” She sighed. “Well, since you feel that way, we must make plans.”
Christina folded her hands in her lap to restrain her excitement. “What should I do?”
“First, I must tell you that the Black Dragon was correct in his claims last night, Christina. “
She felt her stomach crash to her toes. Her eyes lost focus; her hearing faded. “You are a light—”
“I prefer to think of myself as a female companion,” Mary cut in with a tight smile.
Her aunt’s assertion brought Christina to shocked silence. The illusions she’d held these ten years shattered. Mary was a madam. No wonder Grandfather had forbid her to exchange letters with her aunt. He’d known the truth. As had the captain.
“Now,” Mary prattled on, apparently interpreting her silence as acceptance.
“I shouldn’t like to make your first days as a companion unpleasant, so I’ve
-112-
The Lady and the Dragon
worked up something special. I’ll need to know, love, have you been…intimate with a man? If not, the price you fetch will be much greater.”
“I don’t understand. I thought…” Christina frowned, struggling. “I envisioned you ran a club like Boodle’s for the ladies of the island. That they came here for tea and gossip.”
Her aunt’s laugh trickled down Christina’s spine like a frigid waterfall. “I’m not surprised my father hid the truth from you.”
Why hadn’t she thought much beyond her arrival in Grand Bahama? She had not considered her future in detailed terms.
Christina jerked her hands away. “I cannot possibly become what you’re suggesting.”
Mary scoffed. “Child, the ways in which a woman can make the kind of comfortable living to which we’ve become accustomed are two: She may marry and be leg-shackled to the same sorry gentleman for her lifetime or provide the services of a wife without the restraints of marriage. If you truly wish for independence, I should think you would prefer the latter. Your money, time and thoughts will be your own.”
Christina grappled with her aunt’s words. “But to allow a perfect stranger to know your most intimate secrets… How can you abide that?”
“It’s a simple matter, really, once you learn to disconnect the mind from the body. Time will teach you to adjust. Now,” she cast Christina a demanding stare, “are you a virgin, dear?”
“I will not do this!” she replied. “I will not lie down and bare myself to a stranger.”
Mary shrugged. “Of course I can put you on a ship back to London. But now that you’re ruined in society’s eyes, your grandfather will only marry you off to some brutish pauper who will use you in much the same manner as any man you take into your bed here. He will expect children and keep a mistress, use your money and give you little, if any, consideration. But if that’s your wish…”
Rubbing her aching temples, Christina acknowledged the truth of her aunt’s words. London was not a viable option. But neither was becoming a common trollop.
-113-
Shelley Bradley
She thought briefly of the Black Dragon. Maybe if she could get a message to him, he would help. As soon as the thought materialized, she dismissed it.
He would only give her his superior I-told-you-so expression before chastising her with the full force of his contempt. And running to him for help would hardly make her independent. Blast him, did he always have to be right? She sighed in frustration, vowing to escape this mess on her own. A self-reliant woman would do no less.
“I see this is something of a shock for you,” her aunt murmured and snapped her fingers. “Abebi will show you to your room. I’ve many arrangements to make.”
Christina stood at her dismissal. “Cancel your plans. I won’t become any man’s harlot.”
Mary raised a thin brow. “What will you do? Live on the streets? Christina, as women, life offers us limited choices.”
“I—I’ll become someone’s governess,” she blurted.
“With no references but me?” Mary laughed. “How sweetly idealistic you are. You will make some man a handful of a mistress, for which he will adore you.”
“I shall become a traveling companion, then.”
Mary sighed. “Really, do stop dreaming. After spending a night here, you’re ruined for respectable society. Now, tomorrow we shall cover the basics of what your duties to a protector will entail and ways to prevent pregnancy. I think it would be helpful if I explained the rudiments of sex. Yes, I will, later today.”
Christina’s stomach curled with revulsion. A moment later, Abebi’s surprisingly strong grip wound about her arm. She resisted the woman’s pull, but Abebi proved stronger.
Halfway to the door, Mary called. “Do rest well and think about what I’ve said. Soon, you will realize I’m helping you.”
“I will not be any man’s whore!” Christina shouted, trying to pull her arms from Abebi’s grasp.
Mary stood, all pretenses gone. “Stop being so dramatic. You will learn, as all women do, to accept their place in life.” She cast her stormy gaze to Abebi.
“Lock her in her room.”
-114-
The Lady and the Dragon
* * *
Drex dropped his forehead into his hand and swore. Haunting images of Lilli being pawed and raped by strangers in her aunt’s high-class brothel chased themselves through his head, denying him a moment’s peace. Why hadn’t she seen reason when he had spoken with her on the stairs at St.
Mary’s? The evidence of her aunt’s profession was irrefutable. Yet Lilli had insisted on arguing. She was rash, unthinking, lacking in genuine understanding of the world.
He was worried as hell about her.
Hancock knocked on his cabin door, echoing the pounding in Drex’s head.
“Enter,” he barked.
His first mate stepped in reluctantly. Drex sighed, knowing his demeanor had been that of a wounded bear for the past two days. Consciously, he softened his voice. “What is it?”
“The hull’s been scraped and repairs are done. The ship be ready to sail,”
Hancock said. “We can leave with the next tide.”
Drex nodded. Leaving this hellish island as soon as possible would get his plan back on track. He must return to London, abduct Manchester’s granddaughter and ransom her off for Ryan’s release. He shouldn’t linger another moment here.
“Do we sail?” Hancock prompted.
“Damn it,” Drex cursed. His answer should be yes. The journey back to London alone would eat up at least four precious weeks of Ryan’s life. But now he had Lilli to consider, too. He couldn’t just turn his back on her.
“I went back to St. Mary’s last night,” he muttered instead. “Lilli was nowhere in sight. I’m not convinced she’s living there of her own free will anymore.” His gut ached with the pain he feared Lilli was suffering. “God, what if her aunt has already put her to work?”
“She hasn’t.” Hancock handed him a scrap of paper with a sigh. “Read this.”
-115-
Shelley Bradley
Drex grabbed the paper. “What is it?”
His first mate shrugged. “Ye know I can’t read much. But one of St. Mary’s men delivered it. He was real insistent it reach ye, Cap’n.”
Drex swallowed the cold fear clogging his throat. Clutching the paper in his hand, he read aloud:
“You are cordially invited to a special one-time offering of tempting English innocence. Refined yet abandoned, she will enchant all, but leave with only one.
Bidding commences precisely at ten this evening.
Saint Mary”
Below, the infamous madam had inscribed a personal note:
“Perhaps, for the right price, you would care to enjoy what you once declined…”
Drex crushed the invitation in his fist, wishing it were Saint Mary’s neck.
“What are ye goin’ to do, Cap’n?” Hancock asked.
Absent of a ready reply, Drex said nothing. An auction of the flesh? He’d never been to one, and not for lack of opportunity. He had refused to attend in the past. A woman up on an auction block, much like his own mother had been on the streets each night—the very thought left a bitter taste on his tongue. But to see proud Lilli there, bared to flesh-hungry debauchers ready to use her and cast her aside, as his cad of a father had done to his mother… He would not tolerate it.
* * *
Nine-thirty according to the clock on the table. Resolving not to panic, despite the fact her doom lay but half an hour away, Christina darted past the lush cream, red and gold decor of her bedroom prison to the door again. She lifted the latch, only to catch sight of the guard’s icy glare.
-116-
The Lady and the Dragon
For a moment, she considered running as fast as her slippered feet would move. But Aunt Mary’s human imitation of a bloodhound was quicker without yards of petticoats to drag him down, and stronger, too. She had the bruises to prove that fact. Besides, how far would she get, clad only in undergarments?
Feeling tears sting the backs of her eyes, she shut the door and closed her eyes. Dear God, what was she going to do, a penniless woman without even a dress? If she didn’t do something soon, she’d be sold off like a brood mare before night’s end.
Whirling, she ran to the window, only to find it locked, as she had every other time she’d sought escape. Blast it all, she had to find a way to flee, to hide. But where? And how? She must think of escape.
A click of the door’s latch was followed by the opening of the portal. Dread clenched her stomach as she watched Aunt Mary drift through, with a glaring red dress and an impersonal smile.
“You look lovely,” she said. “Abebi did a fine job styling your hair. Don’t forget, men love it loose and long like that.”
“Please, Aunt Mary. Put a stop to this.” Her voice trembled. “If you’re trying to scare me, you’ve done it well.”
Mary set the dress aside on the bed. “Christina, of course you’re nervous.
You don’t know who your first lover will be, yet you will have one before the night is through. It’s an intimidating thought. But you’re a courageous girl.”
She smiled. “I’ve no doubt you’ll flourish.”
“Let me stay here,” Christina offered desperately. “Let me cook for you.
That’s what I did for the Black Dragon.”
Mary laughed. “You’re a wasted asset in the kitchen, darling. I have a roomful of men downstairs dying to get a glimpse of you. I suspect even the Black Dragon would choose you as his lover, not his cook, if he could see you now.” She sighed breezily. “But time will tell. I’ve invited him tonight.
Somehow, I think he’ll come.”
Christina’s heart leapt both in hope and fear. Would he save her? Or would he come to watch her downfall, witness the sale of her body and soul to another man?
-117-
Shelley Bradley
“Now,” Mary said, a scandalous red dress designed to cover virtually nothing in hand. “Let us put this on you.”
Christina stood stock still, arms crossed over her chest. “I will not wear that!”
Her aunt dragged her gaze over Christina’s body clad only in sheer undergarments, then back to the dress. She tossed the red abomination on the bed. “Perhaps you’re right. What you have on is much more to the point.”
Christina’s eyes widened. Tears slid down her cheeks in a hot drizzle.
Would this nightmare never end? “Give me the dress. I’ll wear it.”
“There’s a good girl,” Mary praised, delivering the garment into Christina’s hands.
Reluctantly, she dragged the tight dress of red silk over her body. It clung like an extension of her own skin about her shoulders and waist. The décolletage dipped dangerously low, exposing the upper swells of her breasts. A slit up both sides of the dress exposed her from ankle to thigh.
Christina felt every inch a whore.
Her aunt fastened the back and smoothed the fabric in place. “You remember everything I told you about mating, don’t you?”
Christina sent her aunt a pained frown, not wanting to revisit the gruesome discussion. She still shuddered at the knowledge her aunt intended her to touch, and even kiss, certain parts of a stranger’s anatomy. Intercourse itself sounded suffocating and painful. She couldn’t fathom that tonight she might be forced to allow an unknown man the same liberties.
No, she wouldn’t allow it. Instead, she would encourage some unsuspecting older gentleman to purchase her, then run from him. Yes, that would be her plan.
Drawing in a deep breath, Christina let the measure of calm her plan created cascade over her distraught nerves. She wouldn’t surrender her body on someone else’s terms.
The clock struck ten. The deep gongs of the clock cracked the façade of Christina’s fragile peace. She sent her aunt a questioning glance.
“Yes, dear heart. It’s time to face your future.”
-118-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Nine
The buzz of conversation died abruptly when Christina entered the large drawing room, led by two of Aunt Mary’s henchmen who each gripped one of her arms. She swallowed hard.
Her darting gaze took in the crowd of nearly fifty men scattered about in the refined dark green and burgundy room. Their lascivious stares made them look like depraved fiends, despite their gentlemanly modes of dress. She did not see the Black Dragon anywhere.
Cigar smoke hung thick and pungent in the air. Christina bit her lip to rein in a cough. She’d never had to endure this sharp smell in England. Smoking was socially prohibited in front of ladies. Clearly, the men in this room no longer considered her worthy enough to observe the social graces.
To them, she was a whore. Tears stung her eyes—and not just from the smoke.
A young man tossed his blond head roguishly as he whistled low and long.
“You’re a fine piece I plan to enjoy.” His gaze scanned her up and down, insultingly thorough. “For a long, long time.”
Christina turned away, feeling the burn of shame. She hated her red dress, hated these men.
God, how had her bid for freedom gone so horribly wrong? From a yearning for independence, she had become a veritable slave.
Fortifying anger surged. She clung to her plan, her gaze scouring the crowd for an old gentleman to encourage, one who couldn’t run quickly enough to catch her. The smoky room made her quest a burning challenge on her eyes, until pointed fingers and whispers of awe drew her attention to the back.
Surprise clutched at her throat. Her heart began to pound in a quick thud.
-119-
Shelley Bradley
She spotted the Black Dragon, leaning against the farthest wall. Hancock stood at his side.
She’d half-expected to see him here, but his presence washed her with a mix of hope, fury and despair. Had he come tonight to save her? Or shake his head at her stupidity? His face gave nothing away. True, he had rescued her from Talbot, but probably because he’d needed to maintain discipline on his ship, not because he wanted her for himself.
Christina’s gaze clung to him. His white shirt contrasted with tight black breeches that encased the length of his hard thighs. She took in the familiar shag of his shoulder-length hair, admitting that he looked massive and dangerous with strong arms crossed over his chest and a gun strapped to his thigh.
If he was worried in the least about the fact that soon she would be forced to bed a stranger, he didn’t show it.
One of Mary’s men ended her stare by pushing her toward a raised dais.
The two workmen lifted her up into a plush chair of white velvet. She sat stiffly, shoulders squared to prevent displaying even more of her cleavage in this sieve of a dress.
She closed her eyes. This could not be happening! Maybe she could run for freedom now. If she could hide until she found a way off the island…
Christina jerked forward in her seat and lifted her skirt, preparing to run.
Aunt Mary’s man grabbed her arm in a vise-grip and discreetly returned her to her chair. A warning glare and a display of the firearm concealed beneath his coat convinced her to remain seated.
Trembling, she raked the crowd with her gaze. On the left half of the sumptuous room, she spotted a thin man whose spectacles, thinning hair and shaking hands gave her hope her plan to ensnare a frail protector would succeed. She sent him a smile she prayed wasn’t nearly as stiff as it felt.
Aunt Mary took the stage by her side, wearing a sapphire dress that hid her less-than-lean waist but displayed most of her ample bosom. Christina felt the collective awe of her guests.
“Gentlemen,” she called, “feast your eyes on this lovely girl. Imagine, if you will, plucking the petals of her untouched flower and making her a woman.”
-120-
The Lady and the Dragon
Someone groaned. Christina saw the men’s hungry gazes wrap around her tighter, squeezing the air from her lungs in a terrified rush. She closed her eyes to block out the view.
“A genuine virgin, ripe for the picking,” Mary said in a throaty voice. “For the right price. Because she is my niece, you are assured the bonus of passionate blood. Jonathan…”
The audience clapped as Mary gestured to a man in the corner, dressed to the nines in immaculate black and white.
This whole event seemed much like a nightmare. God, why couldn’t she wake up tomorrow and discover that’s all the last three hellish days had been?
Jonathan, the auctioneer, tossed her an impassive gaze before positioning himself at the front of the room. “Bidding begins at one hundred pounds, gentlemen.”
“One hundred,” called three men at once.
Christina’s stomach threatened to revolt. She clenched her fingers into tight fists.
“One hundred fifty.”
“Two hundred.”
“Three hundred twenty-five!”
Her every pore burned with shame. In retrospect, not questioning her aunt’s way of life, which Grandfather had always referred to as shocking, had been foolish. In fact, failing to plan details, ask questions and think her life through—all mistakes. Too late for regrets now. She spied the old man she’d smiled at earlier and gave him another encouraging grin.
He mopped his damp brow. “Four hundred pounds.”
She let out a deep breath at this good development. Still, she wondered about the Black Dragon’s presence. Had he come to witness her downfall?
Worse to contemplate, maybe he had come for the same reason every other man in this room. He had yet to say a word, give her a hint, to ease her anxiety. But she wasn’t his responsibility, and Christina knew she could not expect him to intercede on her behalf.
She had to escape this mess without him.
-121-
Shelley Bradley
Holding her breath, she prayed no one else would bid after the older gentleman.
“Five hundred,” called the young man who had threatened to enjoy her for a long time.
“Five fifty,” replied the older man again. The quiet, even tone of his voice set her at ease.
She cast a quick glance at the Black Dragon before she could stop herself.
His stoic expression showed no emotion.
“Six hundred,” came the young man again.
Christina batted her eyelashes at the older man. Please, please bid again!
Her target sighed. “Six seventy-five.”
The reluctance in his voice didn’t encourage her. The knot in her stomach tightened.
His young opponent laughed. “Give over, Smithers. I can outbid you any day. We all know that.” He ogled her again. “Seven hundred fifty pounds.”
A dense silence followed.
Christina’s stomach careened in a sickening slide to her toes. She looked to the Black Dragon in panic. Yes, she wanted to be an independent woman, but sometimes life forced one to accept help. Like now.
The captain merely raised a brow.
“Seven hundred fifty pounds is the last bid, gentlemen,” reminded Jonathan. He let a significant pause slide over the room. “Seven hundred fifty pounds going once.” His gaze scanned the hushed crowd, then rested on Christina.
Wasn’t the captain going to say anything?
“She’s lovely goods gentlemen,” Jonathan added. “Are you planning to allow Mr. Caulfield steal her from you all?”
No one breathed, it seemed. Not even the Black Dragon. Blast him! Panic surged. Her heart raced.
“Twice,” Jonathan said.
She turned her expression of undisguised terror toward the captain and found his gaze focused on the auctioneer.
-122-
The Lady and the Dragon
Her eyes slid shut with the knowledge that her future was nearly ruined and her humiliation just beginning.
“Well, then, the lady is—”
“One thousand pounds,” another voice thundered into Jonathan’s speech.
“In gold.”
The sound of the audience’s gasp receded as Christina’s eyes snapped open followed the voice to the back of the room. But she’d know that voice anywhere.
The Black Dragon.
Relief swept over her. The edges of her vision turned fuzzy, her equilibrium tilted dizzily, whether from the tight dress or shock, she wasn’t sure.
The captain pushed away from the burgundy-papered wall and strode between the aisles of chairs, his masculine grace shouting lethality. Around him, the room stopped.
The young bidder’s face turned a mottled red. He whirled to find his new opponent. When the Black Dragon entered his line of vision, mask, weapons and half-concealed tattoo, the blond man’s eyes widened as his complexion waxed white.
The captain approached Mr. Caulfield with a slow, purposeful gait. The man stood his ground.
In a seemingly casual pose, the Black Dragon shifted his hand closer to the gun at his thigh. “I’d be vastly disappointed if you were to outbid me,” the captain said.
Surely everyone in the room saw the meaning of his veiled threat. She held her breath, waiting for his reply.
“She’s not that beautiful,” Caulfield said, then shrugged.
“I’d hoped you weren’t stupid,” said the captain. He followed the words with a chilly smile.
“Take her,” the other man insisted with a gesture to Christina. “She’s not worth what you paid.”
She swallowed her tears at the crass exchange, wishing to God she were anywhere else. She glanced at the Black Dragon. His eyes were black with fury and another emotion she couldn’t quite name.
-123-
Shelley Bradley
“Sold!” shouted Jonathan. “For one thousand pounds.”
The nightmare was over. Christina sagged into her chair, not certain whether to clap wildly or burst into heaving sobs.
As the grumbling guests stood, then made their way to Mary’s waiting girls, her aunt bent to whisper in her ear. “I knew he would come for you.”
Dazed, Christina turned to her aunt. Yes, the captain had come for her.
He’d paid one thousand pounds for the privilege.
What exactly did he expect in return?
She lifted her gaze to him, waiting for him to do or say something. He merely returned her stare with a weighty one of his own that set the uncertainty in Christina’s stomach whirling.
Then the Black Dragon strode toward her, his gait swift, his mien possessive. Too many emotions to name assailed her.
“Good luck, child,” her aunt prattled on. “You may call upon me if you fall on hard times again.”
Christina shot her aunt a disbelieving glare. After all the horror she’d endured, being locked in one room for two days, forced to listen to a revolting explanation of sex that involved men shoving hard flesh into her various orifices, being sold like common slave, Christina would never come here again, no matter how desperate a twist her life took.
Without a word, she turned her back on her aunt.
She faced the Black Dragon, head held high. Anger rolled off of him in waves.
Her emotions brewed like acid in a boiling cauldron. She had a million questions, yet she could find no words. His ominous expression said that her situation was still tenuous.
Aunt Mary wore a polite but amused smile. “I believe there’s a small matter of payment.”
He opened a small sack he’d strapped around his hips and counted out a brimming handful of gold coins. He gave them over to her aunt without a word—without even looking at her.
-124-
The Lady and the Dragon
Mary smiled. “You’ve made a wise choice. She’ll need a firm hand, no doubt, but she’ll serve you well.”
Irritation piqued Christina. “I will not—”
The Black Dragon squeezed her hand tightly, ending her short-lived tirade in a fit of crushed fingers.
“I intend to give her a firm hand.”
“Among other firm things, I’m sure.” The trill of Mary’s throaty laughter set Christina’s nerves on edge, while her aunt’s words reintroduced dread that the Black Dragon now expected a bed mate. “Thank you for the business, Captain.”
He nodded at her aunt in dismissal, his stare still focused her way.
“Hancock has gone to retrieve your luggage. Let’s go.”
Apprehension flooded Christina like a deluge. This was the same man who’d seen her safely to Grand Bahama, protected her from a ship of lusty men, held her after Talbot’s attack. Yet tonight, he wasn’t the same man at all.
The captain threaded a possessive arm about her waist and they turned for the door. She bit her lip in worry as they descended the stairs.
On the moonlit veranda, Hancock stood, holding her valise. That sight, along with the warm night wind, struck Christina with one reality: She was leaving, escaping the inhuman barter of bodies and souls her aunt engaged in.
She wanted to sag against the captain in relief.
But she didn’t know if he’d saved her or planned to use her for his own pleasure.
He hurried her into a coach, then eased onto the seat beside her. Hancock jumped onto the box and the team lurched forward at his command.
She turned to the captain. The tight jaw and pressed set of his lips bespoke fury, even beneath his beard. Finally, he turned to her and leveled her with a hard stare that began at her face and ended with her display of cleavage. He was leering at her, just like all the other men. How could he? He had to know she’d been through hell in the last three days.
Unless he’d bought her for the reason her aunt intended.
Her heart raced as she angled away and grasped the neckline of the hated dress and jerked upward, though with so little material wrapped so tightly
-125-
Shelley Bradley
around her breasts, it did no good. Beside her, the captain grabbed her wrist and swung her back around to face him.
“Did you expect me not to look?” His question sliced her with its razor-sharp tone.
No, she hadn’t expected him to look. But she didn’t say so. His tone told her she’d been a fool for thinking it.
He released her wrist and swept his palm up the length of her arm. His fingers ended at her neck and tangled in her tresses. His touch left a shocking trail of tingles and heat.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?” he shot back. “Don’t touch you? Don’t take what I just paid for?”
His free arm reached around her and brought her closer. Christina’s breathing constricted in a mixture of fear and anticipation. The Black Dragon wanted to kiss her. His gaze focused on her mouth, shouting that fact. She held back. He seemed much angrier, more dangerous. Not at all like the same man she’d left mere days ago.
God knew she wasn’t the same woman.
“You may have paid for me,” she began, “but I cannot be bought.”
He sidled closer, so close, his face blocked everything else in her vision.
“Think again. I bought you, all of you. Had someone else bid higher, he would have torn that red dress to shreds and had his way with you. Why should I be different?”
Christina covered her ears with her hands. “How can you say such horrible things to me after what I’ve endured?”
“As if I enjoyed myself worrying over what your aunt had schemed,” he growled. “Do you really think I relished handing over a thousand pounds in gold for you?”
“I will find a way to repay you. Perhaps if you had bothered to bid sooner, the price would have been lower,” she shot back.
-126-
The Lady and the Dragon
He shot her a withering glare. “I’ve been to enough auctions to know you let the others outbid themselves before you join in. Otherwise, you start a frenzy and drive up the price.”
Though his assessment sounded shrewd, Christina couldn’t dismiss the feeling there was an insult to her person somewhere in there. Was he insinuating she wasn’t worth more?
“You scared the life out of me, waiting—”
“You know, Lilli, only you would complain about the manner in which someone rescued you. I haven’t heard a single syllable of appreciation. My purse is a thousand pounds lighter, thanks to you. And what do I hear?
Complaints. If you had taken the time to find out your aunt’s vocation before you traveled all this way or thought for two minutes about your future before stowing aboard my ship—”
“That is enough!” Tears pricked her eyes. “I refuse to sit here another minute with you.”
He laughed. “Should I leave you here for Mr. Caulfield to find? Or there’s always your aunt.”
She sent him a narrow-eyed glare. “That’s beastly! But I am hardly surprised. Let me out!” she insisted. “I’ll find my own way.”
He tugged on her arm, hauling her nearly atop his chest. “To where?
London?”
She cringed. Definitely not there. “To…” She raised her chin, conscious of the captain’s withering glare. “To Louisiana. Yes. I’ll visit swamps. It sounds very exciting.”
“Princess, you wouldn’t last five minutes in a swamp.”
Fury and humiliation burned her. He was a brute without care for feelings but his own. What infuriated her more was the fact she’d actually missed the cad during their separation. But him, he waited to bid for her, then complained about the price.
“You’re a terrible man. Mean. Autocratic!” she shouted, then drew in a ragged breath. “I’ve just spent the worst three days of my life and you give me a lecture. I won’t have it. I shall happily leave you to your own devices!”
-127-
Shelley Bradley
“I’ve known for some while that you are irresponsible and impulsive, but you’re insane if you think you’re leaving now.”
The carriage lurched to a stop. She peered out and saw they were before a lonely white house. A pair of windows faced the beach like unblinking eyes searching the sea for someone’s return.
She threw herself toward the door of the coach and thrust it open. Below, the damp earth beckoned and Christina jumped, landing with a jarring thud that rattled her teeth.
“Get in the house.” He didn’t raise his voice. Then again, he didn’t need to in order to convey his anger.
Follow him like a servant? No, a slave. A whore. He’d bought her, after all.
But by God, he was a fool if he thought he owned her.
Retrieving another of Grandfather’s more scandalous sayings from her memory, she yelled, “Bugger off!”
She whirled about and darted for the beach, anger enabling her to make ground-eating progress.
Behind her, the captain followed.
Faster she ran, sprinting down the narrow path to the deserted sandy surface below. The scent of salt in the breeze barely pierced the haze of her anger.
With a curse, the captain grabbed her wrist and turned her around to face him.
She collided with the solid breadth of his chest.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he snarled.
“You do not own me!” She tried to tug her hand away.
His nasty grin sent shivers down her spine. “Oh, I do. And I plan to prove it.”
Christina tried to ignore the zing his nearness shot through her body, but his familiar scent made her senses blossom with awareness.
No! She wanted to stay angry with him. He was insulting, infuriating and—
-128-
The Lady and the Dragon
Very good with his mouth, she realized as the Black Dragon bent his head to her neck. She felt his lips caress her skin in a velvet sweep. His teeth grazed her earlobe. Christina shivered as sensations rioted down her spine.
“What are you doing?
“Not another word,” he whispered against the shell of her ear. Goose pimples broke out across her arms at the vibration of his deep voice within her.
“Kiss me.”
With that, he thrust his hands into her wind-tangled hair and claimed her mouth.
-129-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Ten
Christina tore her lips away and scanned the beach for someone, anyone who could help her. Not because she was afraid he would hurt her. Because, despite how much he infuriated her at times, the captain roused dangerous yearnings inside her.
Only the surf and its gentle crash against the distant rocks surrounded her.
“Looking for help?” he mocked. “You won’t find it here.” He lowered his mouth gently, ever so slowly, daring her to resist, before he laid a blistering kiss on her lips. “This beach belongs with the house.” He nodded to the white structure on the hill above. “Both very private.”
“Hancock,” she reminded him, breath shallow.
She knew she should find the strength to twist away—but she couldn’t.
Somehow, whenever the man touched her, common sense melted away and left only an ache, an odd need, for his touch.
He laughed against her mouth, his tones low. “He’s no doubt had the presence of mind to occupy himself elsewhere.”
The Black Dragon leaned forward, pulled her closer. Christina felt her will to resist ebbing away. He cinched her surrender with a drugging kiss. She tried to resist, to wield her anger to ward off desire’s rush. But they both knew she wanted this.
At once, his kiss chastised and absolved her, persuaded, worshiped, and demanded more. Her anger receded into the haze of memory under the insistent temptation of his mouth. She found herself straining toward him, eager for his touch. He burned fire against her lips, singeing her inside and out. Every muscle in his body grew taut, affirmed his want, from the clench of
-130-
The Lady and the Dragon
his arms about her waist, to the heavy rasp of his breathing. And the unmistakable erection pressing into her belly.
Need shook her. She clung to him, shocked at the ache he evoked—low and between her legs. The want spiraled her into sighs and husky murmurs of urging between the sensual assaults on her mouth.
He drew his lips over hers again in a possessive kiss. Intimate. Explicit. No longer gentle or cautious or patient. He took, commanded that she give. For once in her life, Christina obeyed.
She opened for him. His unrelenting invasion robbed her of breath, of the ability to think. Clinging to him, she melted as his tongue made a full sweep through her mouth, his arms crushing against every inch of his work-hardened body, pressing his erection against her again.
Before she caught her breath, his lips descended in a blaze to the sensitive hollow of her neck. He breathed against her damp skin, sending shivers of pleasure racing across her skin. She answered with a ragged exhalation, clutching at his arms, his neck.
As he spread kisses down her shoulders, over the swells of her breasts, the fire within erupted to an inferno. Her fingers brushed the silk of his mask, then tangled into the soft length of his hair. The scents of salt, earth and man seduced her.
He reached for her breast, his fingers lifting her flesh from the snug confines of her dress. An instant later, he fit his mouth over the aching tip, sucking, licking, then giving her a shocking nip with his teeth. An arrow of need flashed straight down, converging between her thighs. She gasped and arched into him. If the end of the world felt this good, she’d follow him to its fiery finish.
“God, you taste so sweet,” he rasped.
His tongue circled and teased her rigid nipple before he shoved the dress further down, then devoured the tip of her other breast. Her breathing grew fast and harsh. She threaded her fingers into his hair and drew him closer to her.
“Yes… Touch me,” she whispered before she could stop the words.
-131-
Shelley Bradley
He inhaled quickly, the demand in his touch conveying his desire. His gaze raked her, lingering on her breasts, now bared to the moonlight.
Christina lifted her shaking fingers to the buttons of his shirt. One button slid free from its confines, followed by another. Finally, a third. She pulled the garment from his breeches and reached for its hem.
He jerked his shirt from her grasp. “God, this is insane. But I want you.”
His whisper played like a confession. He closed his eyes. Her heart leapt as she reached out and caressed the rippling slab of his chest.
At her touch, he sucked in a breath. “I can’t stop wanting you.”
Before she could respond, the captain yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it into the sand below.
Without another word, he grabbed her face, bringing her mouth up to meet the onslaught of his ravenous kiss again. Desire flashed like lightning in her body. She reached for him, her fingers meeting the heat of his solid chest, so warm, so male, need evident in its rapid rise and fall, its pounding heart beneath. She matched the urgency of his kiss with the sweep of her tongue.
The captain slid his insistent fingers down the curve of her neck and shoulders, leaving a track of tingles. His hands met at the small of her back and pulled her into him. Suddenly, she had a first-hand feel of the unyielding staff as he pressed tight against her.
Christina knew exactly what he would do with that cock, as Aunt Mary had called it. But the thought of the Black Dragon parting her folds, filling her with his flesh and moving within her, didn’t inspire revulsion, as her aunt’s description had. Instead, the knowledge burned her, made her greedy, gleeful.
She could scarcely wait for every touch he would give her. Every touch she could give him in return.
She moaned as he bent and stroked his erection directly between her legs, against that secret spot her aunt had called her quim and told her would grow damp as she desired a man. Damp didn’t begin to describe the flood of need she felt.
Breathing harsh, he clutched at the waist of her dress with a desperate grip. Then he gave a single yank. Buttons flew, fabric ripped. The garment fell away, revealing the thin lawn chemise beneath.
-132-
The Lady and the Dragon
Christina gasped and glanced up into the rough-hewn angles of his face, anticipation dancing in her veins. Heat ten times the blaze of Hades roared from his eyes, branding her as his own in a way buying her never could.
Smoothing her tongue across her bottom lip, she pushed the dress down the length of her legs and removed her shoes. Cool sand infiltrated the soft stockings, tickling her feet. She looked at him with a hot, steady gaze.
Palm leaves directly above swayed with the wind as the captain drew her chemise above her head with an impatient yank. The thin garment joined his shirt, castaways to their passion.
She stood, clad in no more than her stockings. A cool breeze rippled against her heated flesh. His gaze followed, a tangible touch, caressing her breasts, stroking the curve of her waist, fondling the pale, damp thatch between her thighs.
Christina reached for him, to somehow affect him as he had her. Every instinct within her wanted to return the depth of pleasure she felt.
He groaned. “I’m dying to taste every inch of you.”
Christina hesitated, watching him. Under the moon’s pale glow, he devoured her with his gaze, waiting…waiting for her next move.
Smiling, she dragged her fingertips across the heated skin of his chest, traced the rigid planes of his abdomen, brushing lower against the hard length of his cock.
The captain shot her a gaze that sparked with silent promise. He was going to make her scream in pleasure, and Christina shivered just thinking about it.
He bent and flung her scanty red dress across the tropical sand. Without a word, he crushed her against him, fitting her against his erection. As she pressed her lips to his chest in welcome, he lowered her on top of the discarded dress.
Following her to the ground with a grunt, he drew himself on top of her and compelled her mouth open with the sweep of his tongue. She clutched him, reveling in his scent, the smooth silk of his golden skin over the hard ripples of his shoulders, in the shifting sand beneath her, the salty breeze teasing her.
Then he trailed a hand across her belly slowly, making her burn with each moment he grew closer to that moist place that ached for him. Fingers trailed
-133-
Shelley Bradley
down, down, taunting her with his suddenly slow pace. Of their own volition, her legs restlessly parted as his hand drew oh-so near. He watched her with burning eyes as she tentatively opened to him.
With a low curse, he ceased toying with her, grabbed both thighs and dragged them wide open. His stare seemed glued to her wet flesh.
Christina started and gasped, a taut yearning suspending her from everything but need.
Then his fingers were on her—in her—stretching, tantalizing, working the little button of nerves her aunt had told her about into a magic tingle, bringing her heaven and hell at once. The ache centered, raged to a fever. Soon, the fever spiked until she neared a hot frenzy.
“Please. Now,” she panted, skin damp with need. “I need…”
“Yes,” he panted. “Now.”
And with another touch, he sent her soaring. Christina cried out, long and low, as blood rushed through her, pleasure converged, clashed, then exploded.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered hotly. “I shouldn’t do this…”
But his voice told Christina that he wasn’t going to stop.
The captain backed away from her just long enough to unfasten his breeches and lower them, exposing the full glory of his wide cock to her.
His flesh jutted hard against his belly, bracketed by lean hips and solid thighs. Heavily veined with an angry purple head, the sight fascinated her.
Then he took himself in hand. From a little slit at the tip, he leaked fluid as he stroked his hard length with a tight fist. That sight made her belly tumble, her need roar. Her curiosity surged. What would he feel like inside her?
Their gazes met as he lowered himself to her. His heated fingers drifted down her silk-clad thighs to her knees, curling inside. He spread her legs apart yet again, so wide, her thighs quivered.
“Sweet Jesus, I want you,” he breathed against her cheek. “Time for truth, Lilli. Was your aunt telling the truth or were you? Have you had another lover?”
Her body throbbed, her nipples hard in the tropical breeze. And the captain looked at her with determined eyes. He wasn’t going to move without an answer.
-134-
The Lady and the Dragon
“There’s been no man.”
The captain paused, then steeled himself with a nod. “I’m not a gentle man.
For you, I will try.”
With his words echoing in her head, he grazed her breast with his lips, then kissed her mouth. His rigid cock probed her opening. With her arms wrapped around the strong column of his neck, Christina held her breath.
He eased inside her, brushing sensitive flesh and liberating a burst of liquid passion. Then he paused. Muttering a curse, he pushed again. She felt something inside her give way to his possession. The pain Aunt Mary had warned her of ripped through her for an excruciating moment as he pushed his way inside. He withdrew and glided back inside, a little deeper. The hurt became discomfort. As he repeated the process, sliding deeper yet, the soreness gave way. Joy and wholeness coexisted with the ache throbbing between her thighs.
Looking into his face, Christina saw taut restraint in his closed eyes, the grit of his teeth. His breath came fast and heavy.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“Right now, it feels wonderful.”
He gave her a strained smile as he thrust inside her again, grinding against her, into her, at the bottom of his stroke.
She moved beneath him, rocking to meet his movements, thrilling to the pinpoints of pleasure that wound throughout her body, into a drugging delight she never wanted to end.
Faster, higher, harder, he moved. He groaned, and she gripped his shoulders, kissing his neck, his hard jaw. Then their mouths met in a union that mimicked their bodies as the craving within her built to something untamed, something that dangled her at the precipice of pleasure again.
The captain shifted, fitting his palms beneath her. He stroked into her again. The pleasure her body sought dawned as light and color exploded around her in ecstasy, this time brighter, wilder, than before.
“Lilli,” he cried, his body tensing, his cock expanding inside her.
-135-
Shelley Bradley
He thrust into her once more, twice. His rough groan rent the air as he slowed his stroke, then stopped. He slumped against her, burying his face in her neck, his harsh breathing a remnant of their passion.
As the fragments of her soul drifted back to her, Christina knew a feeling of joy, as if she’d been reborn. Whole, accepted and treasured; the captain had given her all of these in his embrace.
Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes as she curled closer to him.
Musk and salt overran her senses and coupled with her emotions. What they shared had been significant and rare.
Christina rolled with him as he moved to her side and drew her against his chest. Indolent relaxation swelled within her. She closed her eyes, searching for the words to ask him if the experience had affected him with the same profound sense of awe.
She opened her heavy lids to find the captain searching her face. Before her sluggish mind could form a sentence and voice her question, he kissed her forehead.
“Sleep,” he urged. “We’ll talk later.”
Reassured and content, Christina nestled herself against the length of his warm body, at peace as the damp air rushed across her skin and his arms curled around her. She drifted away, lulled by the sounds of surf and the feel of satisfaction.
* * *
Inching away, Drex stared at Lilli’s slumbering form. Relaxed and trusting, she slept, unaware of his turmoil.
How? The one word litany reverberated in his head, a representative of his chaotic thoughts. How had she been so naive yet unafraid and giving? How had he allowed himself to become intoxicated by her spicy sweetness?
How had such an innocent rocked his body and soul so completely, he felt the craving still, stronger than before?
-136-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drex sighed. He would love the oblivion of sleep now, but his mind wouldn’t rest. Lilli’s alabaster nakedness, exposed to the moon as if she were a sacrificial offering, hardly contributed to a restful state.
Rolling onto his back, he stared at the stars, in search of objectivity. He’d done what he knew he shouldn’t, behaved recklessly with Lilli in his arms.
Despite her aunt’s tutelage, she was ignorant to many of the consequences of their passion. Damn it, he should have walked away, been stronger. Instead, his lust, fueled by anger, had appeared, demanding gratification, along with a taste of her, and damning the repercussions. But this woman thrust past his usual conscientiousness, evoked desire like never before.
Drex rose to his feet and dressed, taking in the smooth perfection of Lilli’s face. The defined angles of her delicate cheeks enhanced the cat-like quality of her green eyes, shining with adoration before she drifted into a light slumber.
His heart leapt with hope.
Yet Lilli had proven herself to be much like Ryan. He knew them both too well to believe her reverence would last longer tonight’s tide. Any longer than Ryan’s devotion to Chantal.
Armed with those realizations, why did he still feel as if he wanted to gather her close and never let go? What he felt, it was insane…complex and undefined. His emotions asked how he could keep her with him for all the days and nights to follow.
His thoughts raced. Tonight hadn’t changed the fact he still needed to rescue Ryan. Tomorrow, he must sail.
Drex’s gaze traveled Lilli’s naked length. He couldn’t leave her here, prey to someone like her aunt, or worse. Of course she had to accompany him back to England. At the voyage’s end, when Ryan was freed, perhaps she would still care for him. Then he could think about the future. What they had shared tonight was too hot and sweet not to pursue.
Lilli moaned and stretched, opening green eyes with a smile. “I thought I had a most delicious dream. But you’re truly here.”
He stroked her hair, wondering how soon he could make love to her again without hurting her. God knew, he wanted to right now.
“Lilli, I’ve got to go back to England tomorrow. I want you to come with me.”
-137-
Shelley Bradley
She pushed herself onto her elbow, her eyes wide and dilated and frightened. “England? Why t—there?”
Pausing, he wondered how much of the truth he should give her. She deserved more than he could. “I have a…mission I must complete.”
“Oh. Can I not stay here to wait for your return?”
“You’re not safe,” he said. “Not with your aunt nearby.”
She conceded the point with a nod. “Can you see to your mission somewhere beside England? “
“No.” He savored her mouth for a sweet moment. Her nakedness waylaid his thoughts until he forced his mind back to the conversation. “Why don’t you want to go to England?”
“I—I can’t go there.”
Her hand-wringing statement puzzled him. Didn’t she know he would take care of her? “Why not?” He laughed. “You’re not running from the law, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. But my grandfather—”
“Ah, so the truth finally emerges,” he teased.
Lilli bit her lip. “I—I suppose I should tell you the truth.” She winced. “Who I really am.”
He stroked her shoulder, then pressed his lips to her damp flesh. She was a changed woman already, offering him the truth. Hmm, perhaps he should have stopped resisting her charms along ago.
“I’m listening.”
Lilli reached for him, entreating, “You must understand. I didn’t have a choice. If I had been truthful from the start, you would have never taken me with you and I—”
“You’re rambling,” he baited with a smile. “So who are you? Princess Charlotte? No, she carries a few more pounds than you.”
“You must promise not to be angry.”
He smiled. “Why should I be? Tell me your little secret.”
She squared her shoulders. Her green eyes, half-hidden by thick lashes, lent her a hint of vulnerability that warmed Drex’s insides.
-138-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Lillianne is my middle name. My—my name is actually Christina Delafield.”
Drex felt as if time had stopped, his blood ceased flowing. His smile faded.
His face became stone. The present became a void filled only with Lilli’s pleading eyes and his own pounding heart. He staggered before his trembling legs gave way and he fell to the sand.
She swallowed, casting him an apprehensive stare. “My grandfather is—”
“The Duke of Manchester,” Drex finished.
Of all the women in London who could have come to his ship, fate had chosen the Duke of Manchester’s granddaughter. The one he had plotted to kidnap. The one he needed to obtain Ryan’s release. The one he’d just made his lover.
Drex turned his gaze to her, as she clutched her chemise over her bare breasts, and swore. He’d deflowered her, one of society’s beloved. The only woman who could end his hellish days in this dangerous masquerade and mend Ryan’s broken family.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” His soft spoken words gave no hint of the turmoil roiling inside him.
“I couldn’t,” she insisted. “If I had, you never would have let me sail with you. I was sure you would ransom me off or trade me for amnesty. I can hardly risk going back to London. Grandfather had vowed to send me to a Swiss finishing school and leave me there indefinitely, so—”
“So you ran away and found me.” With a shaky sigh, Drex rose to his feet and turned away. He needed to think.
He strode away toward the island’s overgrown interior.
“Please, try not to be angry!” she shouted.
An impossibility, he decided. Angry didn’t begin to cover the gamut of his emotions, ranging from fury to disbelief to an urge to laugh at the irony.
He said nothing to her, simply continued into the jungle.
“Don’t leave. I know this is shocking, but…”
An understatement, if ever she’d made one. Why her? Why him? What a terrible twist of fate!
-139-
Shelley Bradley
He trudged forward, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and escaping Lilli’s cries.
“You cannot leave me here.”
A necessity, he knew. He needed time to understand, to sort out his feelings and his duties.
Moments later, the tropical vegetation engulfed him, towering above him, almost obliterating the night sky. The rich scents of wet earth and waxy leaves blended with the varied sounds of night creatures. He walked without a destination.
Drex hated fate. Its dooming ways twisted a man’s gut. Nothing in his life had proceeded as planned for the last four years. Not his days as a plantation owner earning community respect, not his desperate wish to forget his mother’s exploitation, his birth, his past. Nothing.
Damn it, why had Ryan run away from an adoring wife and small son?
Drex had never resented his twin for the upheaval in his life more than he did now.
He swore again. Now he had Christina Delafield to deal with. She’d run away, just like Ryan. He should be repelled by her impulsive behavior. Yet she reached inside his chest and tugged. She mattered to him.
And he’d taken her virginity, made love with her.
Drex raked a trembling hand through his hair. He had never hated the mask and masquerade more since he knew what he had to do. Reality dictated the fact that, no matter how deeply Christina Delafield had imprinted herself onto his heart, he must return her to her grandfather in exchange for Ryan’s freedom. She needed to be amidst her element, where her grandfather’s clout would ensure she could mingle with and marry her own kind.
And to leave her, to convince her that she belonged with England’s elite and not the scourge of the seas, he would have to break her pride—and his own heart.
-140-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Eleven
Christina paced the darkened drawing room from end to end, nibbling on a fingernail. Hancock sat in the corner, his watchful eyes set at a glower.
An hour, blast him! An entire hour since the captain disappeared, leaving her naked and confused on the beach. Of course she hadn’t expected him to be thrilled with the truth, but anger she could have combated. But desertion she had never imagined. Nor did she accept.
She shook her head and shuffled to the window. Nothing but the silver swish of the tide against the shimmering sand.
Wriggling self-consciously in the dress she had not been able to button completely, Christina felt grains of sand chafe her back. Though she refused to dwell on the missing buttons of her shocking dress, her anger surged anew.
Where was that man?
“He’ll be back,” Hancock said, as if reading her mind.
Christina whirled and demanded, “When?”
The short man shrugged. “Maybe five minutes, maybe two days. The cap’n does things in his own way, in his own time.”
If Hancock intended his words as comfort, he obviously hadn’t learned how to do the thing correctly. Two days? She closed her eyes, trying to block out her rising nausea.
She crossed the room again, drawn to the dwindling firelight, and fought the urge to scream or cry—or both. The past four days sat upon her shoulders like an unbearable burden. Everything she’d believed about her aunt had been a lie. Her every dream for the future was crushed.
And the one man she’d begun to regard as her ally, believed to be more than a manipulative bully, had used and left her.
-141-
Shelley Bradley
Without future or direction now, she was all alone.
Finally, he returned. The night’s wind swept into the room with him, as cool as his masked features. His silence gave no hint of his mood.
He turned to Hancock. “Is her valise still in the coach?”
“Aye,” the first mate answered.
With a nod, the captain faced her. “Get in the coach.”
“Where are you taking me?” She cursed her trembling voice.
He didn’t answer. She crossed the room to stand before him, hoping proximity would give her a clue about his thoughts or intentions. No such luck.
His expression remained perfectly hollow, without a single hint of anything as messy as emotion.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Get in the coach.”
Head held high, she considered telling him to take himself off to Hades, but knew his behavior stemmed from the shock of her confession.
Without waiting for her, the Black Dragon spun around and strode through the door, toward the waiting coach.
The damp night air cut across her skin as Christina discovered that the captain had already seated himself in the coach. Hancock assisted her up, then shut the door, leaving them in shared stillness.
As the vehicle rolled away, sharp silence stretched like a thin wire between them. Christina stared at the Black Dragon, awaiting his reaction, preferably an apology. He uttered nothing, training his stare out the window.
Minutes lasted hours. And still, he said not one word. He merely gazed out the window, as if she did not sit directly across from him. As if she did not exist.
“You left me on that beach,” she accused, unable to hold her torment in any longer. “I could barely dress myself.”
He didn’t even spare her a glance. “You managed.”
“With difficulty. I realize you’re quite unhappy about who I am, but it need not change us.”
“There is no ‘us,’” he said quietly, sparing her only the briefest of glances.
“What gave you the notion there was?”
-142-
The Lady and the Dragon
His words struck her like a slap. Notion? She’d given him everything! Her affection, her body, her innocence. Could he have forgotten their ecstasy so quickly? Had he chosen to pretend their lovemaking meant nothing now that he knew her as the Duke of Manchester’s granddaughter?
The tears she’d held back earlier spilled down her cheeks. “You—you miserable knave! How could you say something so terrible?” she sobbed. “You tr-reat me as if I’ve wronged you, yet I’m guilty of nothing but speaking the truth.”
Fists clenched, she waited for his reaction. Tears tracked down her face anew at his taut jaw and chilling silence.
“You—you detestable bastard!” she shouted.
The coach stopped. Craving fresh air and escape, she lunged for the door.
The captain wrapped forceful fingers about her arm to stay her.
“You’re not going anywhere unless I take you there.”
Implacability dominated his voice, brooking no argument. Too bad she was in the mood for a rousing fight.
Christina jerked from his grasp and swiped the tears from her face. “I can go anywhere I please. You don’t own me, not anymore, now that you’ve had your pound of flesh.”
“Care to return to your aunt?” he taunted.
“If I did, at least I would expect a stranger would treat me like a trollop,”
she shot back. “Though next time should be easier, now that you’ve shown me what to expect.”
Christina whirled for the door again, seeking only freedom. Plans and safety would come later, though neither would involve her scandalous aunt.
The Black Dragon hooked his arm about her waist. Dragging her against his steely chest, despite her struggles, he whispered, “What else did you expect, fucking a man whose name you don’t know and whose face you’ve never seen?”
She stilled, struck by the ugly truth of his words.
Over the course of the past six weeks, the small detail of his name had ceased to be relevant. She’d even come to accept the mask as part of his daily attire, which he would doff once she revealed herself. Christina thought she’d
-143-
Shelley Bradley
known him, enough to believe him decent and good, if overzealous and misguided.
Tonight proved she hadn’t known him at all.
“Let me go! I will not travel another mile with you.”
“I’m afraid, Lady Christina, that you don’t have a choice.”
* * *
Four miserable weeks later, Christina hugged her knees to her chest, feeling the sway of the ship…and knowing her heart had broken. She hadn’t seen the Black Dragon once this voyage. Hancock delivered all her meals.
Anything he had to say to her, Hancock acted as his voice.
The captain had even sent his messenger to inquire if she’d had a monthly since their foolish encounter on the beach. She had, thank you, but wasn’t about to say so. Why would he care if she carried his bastard? He had certainly proven he no longer wanted her.
She sank down onto his bunk, the embroidered black dragon on his coverlet an ever-present reminder of him. She’d been foolish to trust a criminal like the Black Dragon with her heart, foolish to allow herself to fall in love with a faceless, nameless man.
Yes, love. Christina dropped her aching head in her hands and succumbed to tears.
For a pirate, or privateer as he preferred, he had seemed so intelligent and reliable, so stable yet concerned. He had represented everything she wasn’t but needed to be. At times, he had behaved much like grandfather, but possessed an unexpectedly gentle heart.
How could she have been so wrong in her perceptions to not see the cad lurking beneath?
The key scraped in the door’s lock, and she looked up to see Hancock shuffle through the portal with her meal. She hung her head, feeling hot tears scald her eyes.
-144-
The Lady and the Dragon
The first mate set the tray at her feet. Even the thought of food made her stomach turn sickly. She rolled away.
“Leave me.” Her voice was muffled by the coverlet.
“Lady Christina, ye must eat,” he insisted. “Yer wastin’ away to nothing but skin `n bones, lass.”
“Take it!” she sobbed.
“I’ll leave it here, in case ye change yer mind. And I’m to tell you that we’re making land tomorrow.”
Hancock definitely didn’t have the comforting knack. At the thought of never seeing the Black Dragon again, she buried her face in her pillow and squeezed fresh tears from her eyes.
Soon, she would be separated from the man she loved, and he couldn’t be bothered to tell her so himself! She might never see him again. Whether she would plead for his affection or scream into his contemptible face if she did, she wasn’t sure.
“Best pack yer things, lass. I’ll come fetch ye in the morn.” With that, Hancock departed, leaving her utterly alone with only misery for company.
* * *
“Is she better today?” Drex grilled Hancock the moment the short man stepped into the infirmary, where Drex had been making his bed these past weeks.
“The same.”
Hancock’s frown prompted additional concern. Drex reined in the urge to shake answers from his first mate. “Well, out with it, man. What did she say to the news we’ve arrived?”
He shook his head. “Nothin’, Cap’n. She cried a little more and turned her nose up at èr food again.”
Drex swore, apprehension gnawing at his guts. This should have been simple. He’d only made love to her once. Why the hell wouldn’t she leave him to
-145-
Shelley Bradley
rot in peace, instead of trying to waste away herself and tearing out his heart in the process?
Because she wasn’t like other women.
Lilli threw herself into the fire, head first, with her own brand of passion.
Her determination and naive charm enthralled all in her path. Even his crew.
Though none had dared voice their opinion, even Hancock, Drex knew from their disapproving stares they all thought him a scoundrel of the worst sort.
He had a hard time sleeping, faced with the knowledge that she seemed to grieve the loss of a bond that could never come to fruition. Knowing that a simple word or two, a gentle touch, would make her world right again. Still, passion so easily given would easily pass. Ryan had proven so with Chantal.
Regardless of Lilli’s flight of fancy, he ached to restore her peace of mind, share the tangle of yearning and pain in his heart. But she was his twin’s ticket to freedom.
His own heart would simply have to break.
* * *
When Christina emerged from the captain’s cabin the following morning, it was to the sight of an unfamiliar rocky coastline. Not that it mattered. The sun’s glare against gray clouds burned her aching eyes. Her head throbbed, her stomach turned. The Black Dragon was nowhere on deck.
“G’bye, Miss Lilli,” Davie rushed to say. “We’ll miss ye.”
Holding back tears, she clutched his hand. “God be with you.” She glanced at the others behind Davie. “All of you.”
Hancock took her arm and led her away. He assisted her into a dinghy and rowed for the shore. Water crashed against the craggy bronzed rocks of the coast in a magnificent spray.
“Ever been to Cornwall, lass?” Hancock asked.
She glanced at the diminutive man, then turned her gaze back to the coastline, heart sinking that he had brought her to England after all. She
-146-
The Lady and the Dragon
wondered if he’d come to tend to his business or ransom her back to Grandfather. “No.”
“A savage sight, ain’t it?”
“Hmmm,” she murmured her assent absently.
Her stare remained on the damp cliffs, but her mind wandered elsewhere.
Had the captain disembarked already? Or perhaps he wasn’t coming ashore.
Maybe, in his final act of cruelty, he had banished her to land without even saying goodbye.
She refused to cry again today. The captain had chosen to forsake her, and she would accept his decision with dignity.
Once they made dry land, Hancock assisted her from the tiny boat. A bitter wind whipped strands of hair across her face.
“Ye need me coat, lass?” he asked.
In truth, she’d barely noticed the cold. “No.”
They walked the length of the dock. Christina observed the curious stares of the sailors around her, but didn’t care. Other peoples’ opinions no longer mattered now that her heart had shattered into a million pieces.
They climbed a steep path that wound its way through the stony surface of the hillside. At the top, Christina spotted an austere black coach.
The Black Dragon stood beside the vehicle, black clothing whipping about him in the wind as he saddled a horse.
She swallowed the thick lump in her throat and told herself his presence did not matter to her in the least.
Her racing heart and watery vision proved that she lied.
The captain paused in cinching the saddle to glance across the distance at her. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Christina felt the effect of his gaze all over her trembling body. Hot and cold quivers raced across her skin, delved into her stomach.
Christina wished she knew what he was thinking. She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Still, he didn’t look away. Did he stare out of latent care and concern, or a curiosity to know if she’d survived his cruel desertion?
-147-
Shelley Bradley
She, for one, did not plan to stay and find out. Turning away from the blackguard, she tried to ignore the desperate ache swirling with the writhing agony in her stomach.
A moment later, Christina heard the creak of leather and the sound of hoofbeats. She looked up to find the captain riding away in a flourish of dark hair and a black cloak.
She bit the inside of her lip to restrain oncoming tears. At her side, Hancock peered into her face curiously.
“It’s fer the best, lass. Ye and the cap’n, ye come from different worlds. He doesn’t understand yours, and ye don’t belong in his.”
She nodded, trying to accept his outlook, and took his arm as they walked to the coach. He handed her up into the empty vehicle and shut the door behind her. Within moments, the gig rolled away toward a future she knew nothing of.
* * *
Drex pulled on the reins of his horse in a copse of trees in front of the Fox and Hound Inn. The little known establishment on London’s outskirts would suffice for his secrecy. His arrival in the morning’s wee hours would make discovery less likely.
But he had to shed his disguise as the Black Dragon.
He unknotted the silk at the back of his head, feeling exposed yet freed at once. The damp summer air kissed the few parts of his face his beard didn’t cover, and he gave an unfettered shake of his over-long hair.
If only stripping his heart of Lilli were so easy.
With a sigh, he stabled his horse, then made his way inside the inn. A room awaited in Greg’s name, just as he had instructed his friend via missive to arrange. He’d also had them ready another room for Christina’s arrival with Hancock tomorrow.
Mounting the stairs two at a time, Drex headed for his room, wanting nothing more than sleep. He opened the door to find wine, a light repast of bread and cheese—and Greg sitting by the flickering firelight.
-148-
The Lady and the Dragon
The man’s cheerful smile indicated clearly that Greg was quite awake. Drex knew his friend well enough to realize he’d want a long talk.
Greg stood. “I feared I’d become an old man before you arrived.”
“The rain in Devonshire slowed me.” Drex set his cloak and mask on the chair before him, then shut the door.
His friend stuck out his hand, and Drex clasped it tightly.
“Now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries, would you please tell me what the hell your note means?” Greg demanded.
Drex sighed and drained the wine glass. “Where should I start? I suppose with the fact that no one could find Christina Delafield because she stowed on board my ship.”
Greg’s blue eyes threatened to pop from their sockets. “What? Are you certain?”
“Now I am.” Drex waved a hand through the air in a dramatic sweep. “After I found out she wasn’t married, didn’t have a dying mother, and wasn’t fleeing a jealous lover.”
Greg frowned. “I’m afraid I didn’t follow all that rubbish. Married? A jealous lover?” He shrugged and scowled. “Her mother died over ten years ago.”
Drex smiled bitterly. “Her lies had more holes than a fishing net. I didn’t know what to believe.”
“So you brought her back to England to ransom her for Ryan?”
Drex closed his eyes, wishing he could see any other way of freeing his brother, but he’d already exhausted all alternate avenues months ago. “Yes.”
“Why Cornwall? Manchester will expect you in London.”
“Exactly. If he expects me to land in England at all, it’s at London’s docks.
This way, I traveled by coach virtually beneath his nose and take him by surprise. I don’t plan to give the knave enough time or information to arrange an ambush.”
Greg nodded. “Good thinking. Does Lady Christina know what you intend?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t spoken a word to her since—”
-149-
Shelley Bradley
Drex broke off, realizing what he’d been about to confess. He couldn’t tell Greg—or anyone—that he’d made love to Christina, that he would do it again if he didn’t have to sacrifice her in this ugly game of politics and prisoners.
“Since…?” Greg prompted.
Drex just shook his head. “Since she told me the truth. We left Grand Bahama the next day.”
Greg peered closely, suspicion imprinted into each feature. “You have feelings for the girl. I can see them all over your face.”
Gritting his teeth, he replied, “Whatever I feel is irrelevant.”
“Did you…” Greg trailed off. “Ah…well, in more delicate terms, did the two of you—”
“Unless you want my fist connecting with your mouth, I don’t advise asking that question,” Drex cut in, then silenced him with a scowl.
“I’ll take that to mean yes.” Greg whistled. “I think you’ve been stricken, but good.”
“Excuse me?”
“Cupid,” Greg clarified. “Your protectiveness, your melancholy. They point to love.”
Drex tensed and pushed the possibility aside. “I plead guilty if love and exhaustion are the same. Can you leave me in peace to sleep now? We’ll go over the plan to exchange Lilli for Ryan in the morning.”
“Lilli?” Greg questioned, brow raised. “A pet name?”
“Another one of her lies,” Drex clarified.
But deep inside, he feared that no matter how much time passed or how far he traveled, she would always be his Lilli.
* * *
The following morning, Drex rose and ate a light breakfast in his room. He stared out the window, searching for signs of Christina’s arrival. He hoped to God she had not tried to escape Hancock. He’d instructed his first mate to use force, if necessary. He doubted the man would do it, however. Hancock had
-150-
The Lady and the Dragon
grown fond of the girl. His only hope remained that her gloom hindered her from attempting to flee.
A brief knock sounded. He opened the door, knowing Greg stood on the other side.
“Good morning,” Greg greeted.
Drex grunted. It might have been good, had he gotten any sleep, if Christina’s visage hadn’t haunted him all night. “If you say. Let’s discuss this exchange of Lady Christina for Ryan.”
Greg glanced back at the door with a frown before he crossed the room and helped himself to a chair. “Now?”
“Help me send Manchester a note. I’ll sign it, stating that I want Ryan released in exchange for his granddaughter. We’ll meet in one week. As for location, I’ll have to rely on your knowledge of London.”
Greg paused, then nodded. “I know the perfect place. It’s sometimes used for illegal duels. You and Manchester can meet at dawn. It’s fitting, don’t you think?”
Drex rolled his eyes at Greg’s flair for drama. “Very well. Give me directions, and I’ll take Christina there myself.”
“I shall draw you a map tomorrow,” his friend said.
“Perfect.”
“Now that business is settled, I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” Drex scowled. Greg’s surprises were always unexpected—and rarely good. “I don’t need a surprise.”
Greg rose from his seat and crossed the room. “A pity,” he said, opening the door. “Come in.” He motioned to someone standing in the hallway.
“Are you certain?” the unseen man asked.
“Of course.”
Drex took a moment’s notice of Greg’s impatience—until the man came into view.
He and Drex shared the same height, the same build, the same eyes. A mirror image of his chin, when clean-shaven, met his gaze. The man possessed
-151-
Shelley Bradley
dark hair, like his own, but sprinkled with gray at the temples. The man raked a hand through his short hair, as Drex himself was wont to do.
The stranger could only be his father.
The ground shifted beneath him, and Drex reached to grip the table beside him for support.
A wave of incredulity and boiling fury washed over him. His gaze wandered the man who had abandoned his mother to prostitution, leaving two young boys on the streets. Why, after all these years, had the man brought his miserable hide here?
“What do you want?” Drex snapped.
The man stepped backward and shot Greg a questioning glance. “I’m your—
”
“I know who you are,” he cut in, curling his hands into fists. “You are not welcome here.”
The earl’s pained frown emanated regret. “Please understand, I learned of your existence years after your birth. I had no idea your mother was pregnant, son. She—”
“Never call me son.”
The man reached across the few feet separating them. The distance may as well have been a chasm, for Drex had no wish to connect with the cur who had abandoned a frightened, pregnant woman so he could continue his life of privilege.
“I’ve waited nearly two decades to meet you,” the man implored.
Drex crossed his arms over his chest and looked away from the man’s beseeching features. The earl had made his choice years ago, to walk away from his woman and children. Drex refused to give the man any sympathy now.
“I know you’ve had a terrible time of it,” his father went on. “And I know an apology seems paltry, but I am very sorry.”
Drex cursed beneath his breath. Why did Greg have to bring the man here now? He had enough to deal with in trying to free Ryan and release Lilli. The upheaval of dealing with the good earl was more than he needed now. And the
-152-
The Lady and the Dragon
man’s seeming sincerity added another complication he didn’t want to deal with.
“Viscount Monroe,” his father gestured to Greg, “informed me that your younger brother, your twin, Ryan was impressed into the Navy.”
Drex refused to respond. His father’s concern had come twenty-eight years too late.
“Yes,” Greg pitched in. “I also told him all of the methods you’ve used in trying to obtain his release.”
“All of them?” Drex felt his blood begin to boil.
“Yes. He—”
“Are you insane?” he hissed. “Why don’t you just pay the town crier to shout that I’m the Black Dragon? Maybe that will catch Manchester’s attention.”
“I’m here to help you, in any way I can,” his father interjected. “I shall renew old contacts, see if I can at least learn what ship Ryan is on. But your secret is safe with me.”
“How touching.” Drex’s voice oozed sarcasm.
His father sighed. “I came here today to tell you that I never married and have no children. Should you wish it, I want to make you my heir. My home and family are open to you and your brother, if you simply say the word.”
Without waiting for Drex’s reaction, the earl exited the room, leaving a wake of troubled silence.
-153-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Twelve
A week later, dawn spread over the misty slopes of an empty London field, signaling the death knell of Drex’s hopes for a miracle. Ryan had not magically been released, nor had he escaped. Drex saw no end to this excruciating exchange of one part of his heart for another.
He was going to have to release Lilli.
She stood behind him, glaring daggers at his back. Hancock held her in his grip.
No one said a word, or breathed, it seemed, as they awaited the arrival of Manchester and his men. Greg had volunteered to lead the man to this secret rendezvous point in order to prevent the possibility of an ambush. And true to form, his friend had disguised himself with an absurd plumed hat, atop a powdered face and wig. The French falsetto he mimicked only added to his outrageous Revolution-era fashion debacle.
Drex stole a discreet glance over his shoulder at Lilli’s pale, thin features.
Her gaze burned with hostility, and she aimed both barrels at him alone. Only the knowledge that her broken heart must be temporary enabled him to push forward with his plan.
Still, he wished he’d had the opportunity to explain this hostage exchange to her. But the less she knew, the better. Her grandfather would doubtless grill her for information.
Drex heard Manchester’s entourage arrive before he saw them. Cursing the dense morning fog, he could only hope his nemesis had not had adequate time to hide gunmen in the surrounding brush.
-154-
The Lady and the Dragon
A lone figure approached through the soupy gray mist. Drex walked toward the man and recognized Greg by the multi-colored hat perched atop his towering wig. His chalky face appeared ghostly in the pallid sunlight.
“Ready?” Greg asked.
Drex nodded, forcing himself to focus on the matter before him, not the woman behind him. “Are they armed?”
“Manchester refused to come without weapons.”
With a shrug, Drex accepted that fact. He had not come to meet an enemy without guns, either.
“Did you get a good look at Ryan?”
Greg nodded. “I feel certain I saw him behind his beard and bruises when I peeked in the coach.”
Relief spiked through Drex, followed closely by anger. Ryan was hurt, perhaps even bleeding or dying.
He swore. “Tell Manchester to bring Ryan to the middle of the field. I’ll meet him there with Christina.”
Greg nodded and spun away. Drex turned slowly and faced Lilli. Her face was set in tense, angry lines.
His stomach clenched up like a fist as he approached her. He’d only have these few minutes with her before she left his life forever, eclipsing him from her golden light. He wished they could have privacy, that he could tell her he did not want to let her go. That he cared, despite his better judgment.
He stopped directly before her. The cold fury spitting from her green eyes let him know pretty words and the truth would no longer redeem him in her view—a circumstance probably for the better, much as he regretted her pain.
They had too little in common. Just an electric desire that defied the laws of logic.
“You’re sending me back to Grandfather, aren’t you?” The accusation in her voice told him she knew the answer.
He nodded, unable to find his voice, to unearth the words to hide the tangle of his feelings.
“For amnesty?” She raised a sharp blond brow.
-155-
Shelley Bradley
“The less you know, the better.”
His answer came out in an even, modulated voice. Yet his emotions warred a bloody battle with logic, duty versus desire, responsibility versus yearning.
Forcing the dichotomy of his feelings aside, he reached for her arm to lead her away. She jerked from his grasp. “I hardly need your assistance to walk.”
Drex steeled himself against the rising need to drag her into his arms.
“Follow me.”
The trek across the lonely field seemed interminable. Drex surveyed his surroundings for surprise attacks, aware all the while of Lilli behind him. She smelled of scented soap this morning. That light lilac fragrance, combined with the damp morning chill, permeated his very being.
Resisting the urge to turn back and hold her, Drex concentrated on the crunch of brittle grass beneath his boots, on watching for emerging figures in the fog.
Lilli’s once-snug dress now fit as if it had been made for another woman.
He wondered when she had last eaten. Her fragility only magnified his guilt.
Damn it, shutting her out of his life had not been an easy task for him, either.
In fact, he ranked the feat blasted near impossible. But he’d done it. So why hadn’t she recovered her former fiery self?
In time, she would. She was angry because he’d planned this hostage exchange without her knowledge or consent. Of course, she would hate him for this. Which was fine, since he would come to think of her as a fond memory, someday.
The argument was sound and sensible and should have made him feel better. But he didn’t believe it.
Finally, four figures appeared, materializing out of the fog. He recognized Greg’s pasty countenance and Manchester’s tight one. Two soldiers flanked either side of them.
“You bastard,” Manchester growled. “Where is my granddaughter?”
Drex stepped to one side, revealing Lilli. She gasped and sniffled, and he turned to find her gaze focused on her grandfather. Tears floated down her taut, pale cheeks. She took two quick steps toward Manchester. Drex thrust an arm in front of her, blocking her path.
-156-
The Lady and the Dragon
Her impatience to be gone from him shouldn’t bother him, Drex knew. But bloody hell, it did.
The old man clenched his large hands into fists. “By God, if you’ve hurt her—”
“Where is your hostage?” Drex broke in.
“You’ll have to retrieve him. He’s in the coach, unconscious.”
Drex clenched his teeth, vowing he’d exact revenge, particularly if the Admiralty had caused Ryan permanent damage or death. “Point me in the right direction.”
At Manchester’s side, Greg gave a nearly undetectable shake of his head, then chimed in with his phony falsetto French voice, “Excuse us. Oui?”
Drex watched with confusion as Greg approached and took his arm.
Grabbing Lilli, he allowed his friend to guide a few steps away from the gathering. “Don’t go to the coach. I heard some of Manchester’s men arrive just moments ago. I don’t doubt they all have guns pointed at that vehicle.”
Drex cursed. His mind raced. He could send someone else to the coach, but refused to risk another’s life when his own should be at stake. He considered using Christina as a shield, but cast the idea aside. Risking her safety was unthinkable.
Still, the duke’s latest tactic gave Drex little choice but to counter with a new plan.
“Follow me,” he said to Greg, then strode back to Manchester, holding Christina’s wrist in his grip.
Once he reached the older man, Drex commanded, “You will go back to the coach and drive it to this spot.” He pointed to the ground before him. “Then I will release your granddaughter.”
Manchester paused, then nodded.
“And when I leave this field, no one will follow.”
“No one,” the duke choked.
He nodded. “Good.”
Manchester walked away. Drex stood tensely.
-157-
Shelley Bradley
Inside a minute, the coach arrived, with Manchester on the box. The older man stopped the vehicle and dropped down.
Drex peered into the window. Ryan’s identity was unmistakable, even relaxed in slumber and covered by welts of purple and black.
Euphoria swirled through Drex. His life would again be his. He could return home, plant his crops in the earth, see his fortune prosper, give up danger and war and treason. Then he spotted Lilli by his side, her face ashen and angry, and wondered if anyone would really win this battle.
“Take him out of the coach,” Drex demanded.
Manchester paused. “He’s injured and should be moved as little as possible.”
Frustration and anxiety gnawed at Drex’s stomach. Based on his visual assessment, Manchester was right. He motioned to Greg, who nodded. “Get someone to bring the coach over here.”
“Oui,” Greg answered in a single-high pitched syllable, then disappeared into the fog.
A long moment of silence fell over the small group. Drex felt Lilli’s small wrist in his hand, warm proof of his sacrifice to his brother’s damned sense of adventure. A tangible reminder of the woman he feared he would never forget.
As he turned to her, a pool of tears gathered in her huge emerald eyes. Drex used his grip to pull her close. She resisted, but proved no match for his strength.
Words eluded him as he stared for an endless moment into her fair features. The wind brushed an errant strand of her golden hair from her upswept style. Drex caught the curl with his fingers and tucked it behind her ear.
Christina opened her mouth. Drex saw the protest coming before she voiced a single word.
“Don’t—” she began softly.
He silenced her with a kiss.
Leveling his mouth atop hers, Drex allowed himself to taste her nectar this last time. She stiffened against him, but her silent refusal couldn’t dampen his
-158-
The Lady and the Dragon
pleasure. He held her closer and feathered his lips over hers again. After a moment’s hesitation, she opened to him.
Something inside him exploded with a wild burst of possession as Christina clung to him. Her kiss became a plea as their tongues met. He tasted despair and desperation.
Knowing he could change nothing, Drex tore himself away.
At the click of a gun’s hammer, Drex looked up to find Manchester’s weapon pointed at his belly. “Keep your bloody hands off of my granddaughter!”
The mottled red of the man’s complexion, along with the gun, let Drex know the old man meant business.
He nodded slowly and grabbed Lilli’s arm. He wanted to wish her Godspeed and happiness. But the gaze she cast upon him, let him know he ranked lower than Lucifer on her list.
“Give her to me now,” Manchester demanded as Drex’s coach pulled up beside Manchester’s. Hancock jumped to the ground. The duke trained the barrel of his weapon at Drex.
The moment had arrived. Knowing his inadequate well wishes would never repair the damage to Lilli’s emotions—or his heart—Drex guided her to her grandfather’s side. His fingers slid down her arm in a last desperate caress.
She yanked from his touch and turned to Manchester.
The emptiness inside him was mirrored on her face. Knowing he could do nothing to ease either of them pained him more.
“Christina,” her grandfather instructed, “behind me a coach awaits. Get inside. I’ve a few words for this fiend.”
Christina turned to Drex, cast him one last green-eyed glance full of anger and despair, heartache and confusion. New tears gathered in her eyes. Then she whirled around and sprinted into the fog. Drex watched her disappear, feeling as if someone were squeezing his heart dry of life.
Manchester growled, “If you’ve planted a bastard in her belly, I vow I will hunt you down. There will not be a hell good enough for you.”
“I didn’t.”
-159-
Shelley Bradley
A strong part of him, one that ached, wished she had conceived that night on the beach. She would still be with him.
“I’ll get you,” Manchester vowed. “Make no mistake. This battle isn’t over.”
Before he could reply, the duke turned and rushed away. Drex turned to the coaches beside him, where Hancock was attempting to open the door and reach Ryan.
He stepped forward to assist. He would have time later to miss Lilli—a lifetime, in fact. Ryan needed him now.
Gunshots sounded suddenly, a veritable army of them, judging from the retorts echoing across the ghostly field.
Cursing the wily old goat, Drex fell to the ground, as did the men around him. He should have known better than to trust the Lord of the Admiralty.
A bullet ricocheted off the side of Manchester’s abandoned coach with his brother inside. Urgency ignited him to action as he rose and threw himself toward the vehicle.
The coach started to move. Drex clung to the side, one hand clutching the top. He looked up to see one of Manchester’s men on the box, whipping the horses’ backsides.
They rolled faster with every turn of the wheels. Drex yelled for help, but his men had been left behind. Bullets whizzed past him, their blasts a constant retort. He stretched across the coach’s door and jerked on the handle.
The door wouldn’t budge.
With a rousing curse for Manchester’s treachery, Drex renewed his grip on the top of the rolling coach, then sent a fist flying into the window. Glass shattered around him. A sting and gouging of his knuckles later, blood oozed down his hand and ran in rivulets beneath his cuff.
Shaking his abused fist, he reached for the handle inside the coach’s door, only to find it missing.
Horror washed over him in an icy hot rush, crashing through his bloodstream. His mind raced for alternatives, ways to free Ryan from the trap of the swaying vehicle.
-160-
The Lady and the Dragon
Cursing, he reached for the gun at his side and aimed at the man atop the box, who was whipping the horses to a perilous gallop. He paused to aim carefully, knowing he’d have one shot.
He curled his finger around the trigger, ready to oust Manchester’s man from his seat.
Instead he felt liquid fire inject into his side.
He cried out, fingers clutching the top of the coach. His side burned.
Glancing down, he spotted a stain of red spreading at his side and knew he’d been hit.
Determined to ignore the pain, he raised his gun again. Aiming seemed a Herculean task. His vision blurred. His palms began to sweat. Drex felt his grip on the coach slipping.
Quickly, he fired. And missed.
Pain and despondency racked him as he gripped the side of the vehicle with damp fingers, hanging on for his very life. He felt the blood running down his side in a hot trickle. Dizziness and nausea assailed him at once.
Drex forced his drooping eyelids open and took in the sight of his brother’s beaten face before his fingers slid down the side of the coach and he hurtled to the ground.
* * *
The constant swaying of the ship made Drex’s stomach heave again. He stuck his head over the chamber pot, stomach rolling. With all the gentleness of a hurricane, he lost what little breakfast Hancock had forced down his throat.
When his stomach was empty, Drex raised his head and washed the acrid taste from his mouth with another long swallow of rum. Bleary-eyed, he glanced out the small window and judged the time about noon. He was still on his first bottle today and must drink fast to achieve the oblivion he’d lived in for the past two months. Thoughts were beginning to creep in.
-161-
Shelley Bradley
Thoughts that reminded him he’d lost everything dear to him: Ryan and Lilli, his way of life, his freedom.
Drex clenched his teeth in an effort to blot out reality. Damn it, he would not think of that morning, despite the ache in his slowly-healing side that served as a constant reminder.
He took another deep swallow to block out memory and reason. Of course, he’d known he must give up his attachment to Lilli for Ryan. But to lose them both…
Hancock bustled in moments later bearing another tray of food. Drex’s stomach roiled in protest.
“Ye found the damned bottle, I see,” Hancock grumbled.
“Right where you hid them,” Drex confirmed, then belched.
Hancock grimaced. “Don’t ye think it’s time ye be soberin’ up and gettin’
back to the business at hand?”
“I tried to save Ryan,” he slurred. “I cut out my heart and served it on a platter to Manchester for my brother’s freedom.”
“Don’t mean the fight is over,” Hancock protested, setting the tray of food on his desk. “There must be more than one way to lick that whelp. And if any man can do it, it’s you.”
Drex scowled and turned away from the aroma of bread and cheese, pondering Hancock’s words as the man left. More than one way to beat Manchester and free Ryan? Perhaps, though Lord knew he’d already tried several approaches and failed.
He fantasized that he could find some way to win his brother’s emancipation and Lilli’s heart with one clean sweep.
The fantasy faded against reality’s glare. He was alone, sick and hunted, without a plan, and trapped in a life at sea without end in sight. He couldn’t return to Louisiana and Chantal without Ryan. He’d given his sister-in-law his word.
Perhaps he could return to his first plan, abduct Christina and ransom her back for Ryan.
-162-
The Lady and the Dragon
No, he couldn’t, he decided, raking a hand through unkempt hair. The plan was too risky for a variety of reasons. Manchester would have his granddaughter heavily guarded. Even if he were able to capture her, his last hostage exchange had included bullets. If one hit Lilli, he’d never forgive himself. Nor was he certain he could keep his hands off her. The last few weeks of her captivity had sorely tested his willpower. She would never know how many times he had simply watched her sleep on their return voyage—and longed to curl her body against his and love her long into the night. And if he did make love to her again, could he let her go? Probably not. Besides, just returning to London was a dangerous feat in itself.
He laughed grimly and took another swizzle from the rum. Hell, with Manchester vowing to destroy him, he had no way to gain entry into London in order to find Ryan and convince Lilli that he still wanted her. He’d nearly have to be married to the old bugger to open the doors he needed.
Or married to his granddaughter.
Picking himself up off the floor, Drex set his bottle aside. Marry her. Yes.
Perfect! But how? He’d have to be someone of importance. He was no duke.
Just the son of a prostitute from London’s Whitechapel district.
And an earl.
Greg had warned him that Christina would be considered soiled goods by the ton now that she was back in London. If Manchester had any intention of marrying her off, the old goat would have to settle for a social climber or fortune hunter for a grandson-in-law. Hopefully, a wealthy earl’s illegitimate son would be good enough.
And once married to Lilli, he would find a way to make her happy while demanding Ryan’s release. All that he required was a new disguise—and contact with his father. To achieve both his ends, he could put up with the selfish cur for a few months.
Drex changed his soiled shirt for a clean one and donned his mask. In moments, he strode to the deck, eager to find Hancock. He ignored the glare of bright sunlight and the pounding in his head, and focused on the rousing effects of the salty wind in his face.
“Hancock!” he shouted.
-163-
Shelley Bradley
“Aye, Cap’n?” His first mate came running, then observed, “Ye be dressed in clean clothes.”
Resolve bolstering him, Drex nodded. “Turn the ship about. We’re going back to London.”
-164-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Thirteen
Drex sneaked into England via Cornwall. The damp wind and biting mist mirrored his emotions. Stormy. Gray. Uncertain.
Success at this scheme was paramount. Ryan, if still alive, wouldn’t live long in his condition. Drex had wasted precious time on self-pity, and he regretted it now. And before another man saw how fun and fiery his Lilli was, Drex had to win her, as well. If he failed now, he risked losing them both forever.
After weeks of turbulent travel and sleepless waiting, he stood before his father’s St. James Square door on a chilly Tuesday evening, trying to swallow his pride and contempt.
He knocked. A haughty, shriveled man opened the door and looked down his long nose at Drex. “Yes?”
“I’m here to see Ashmont.”
The man sniffed. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” he said between gritted teeth. “But—”
“I’m afraid he’s not at home,” the butler cut in.
The old man began to shut the door in Drex’s face. He lodged a foot inside the portal before it closed.
Drex pushed the door open again. “I think you’ll find he’s at home for his son.”
The butler stilled. “His son, you say?”
He nodded. “Drexell Cain.”
Raising a brow, the butler opened the door. “Wait here.”
-165-
Shelley Bradley
Drex concentrated on the richly carpeted entry hall. A pedestal cupboard stood beside the wall to his right, crowned by a matching urn. A landscape painting hung farther down the wall, looking indolently expensive, a symbol of wealth.
God, he hoped he could fit into this selfish, sanctimonious society for Lilli’s sake. Once married to her, he would reveal himself and make his past transgressions up to her, while working toward Ryan’s release. Taking in the opulence around him, he wondered if his simple plan was impossible. He’d known squalor and danger his whole life. How would he ever fit in here?
To his left, Drex spotted his father cantering down the stairs minus a coat, cravat askew. His open mouth and wide eyes spoke volumes about his surprise.
“You’ve come.” His father paused at the bottom of the stairs, a burgeoning smile crossing his features.
Drex shuffled his feet and coughed, fighting the ever-present urge to tell the man he’d always viewed as a selfish knave to go to hell. “I have.”
“To stay?”
“For the foreseeable future,” Drex replied.
The smile that overtook the earl’s face transformed him from a distinguished fifty to boyish. “A joyous day, indeed. One I never thought would come. Come and sit. You look tired.”
The earl gestured him upstairs, then down a red-carpeted hallway. He threw open the last door to reveal an elegant drawing room with walls of pale pink.
The intricate wealth of the carved ceiling and Sheraton furnishings took Drex aback. If the man had walked away from his responsibility years ago, instead of marrying beneath him, why was he willing to share it all with his by-blow now?
Once seated, his father gestured him to the ivory fringed chair nearest the fire. “You’ve given up the…other pursuit?”
“For now, at least.”
The earl leaned forward. “You’ve arranged Ryan’s release?”
-166-
The Lady and the Dragon
“No, that’s why I’ve come. I have another plan, which requires your assistance.”
His smile grew wider. “By all means, yes.”
“This isn’t about sentiments,” Drex warned. “I need your position within the ton and your title, not a father-son rapport. You left a sixteen year-old girl pregnant with twins. In my estimation, a man cannot behave with less honor than that.”
The earl held up his hands to ward off any further barrage. “Drexell, I swear I had no notion Faith had conceived.”
He laughed bitterly. “You were bedding her. Certainly, you knew pregnancy was a possibility.”
“I’d hoped for it,” his father countered, surprising Drex. “I had asked her to marry me, more than once. I thought if she conceived, she would be left with no choice but to wed me. Instead, I returned from an evening at White’s to find her gone.
“I searched. For two years! I could find nothing. I knew my family had a hand in keeping us apart, but no amount of cajoling would persuade them to talk. When I voiced my fears that she was pregnant, my father replied that children begotten on such a woman weren’t worth having.”
Drex drew in a deep breath. The man’s explanation sounded plausible, especially since his mother had never offered one, but he wasn’t interested in forming a bond with the man.
“I’d prefer to leave the past there,” Drex said.
“As would I, now that you’ve come here. I should like to learn about your brother and your childhood, as well as—”
“Ryan could be dying as we speak, for Christ’s sake,” he growled. “I only plan to stay long enough to accomplish two things, then I will return to Louisiana.”
“You have your mother’s directness.” The earl sat back in his chair, hands folded, expression restrained. “You said you’ve come for help and not sentiments. What do you need to accomplish your two tasks?”
-167-
Shelley Bradley
Drex braced his elbows on his knees. “A position in society and enough clout to marry Christina Delafield.”
The ensuing silence hung over the room like a black pallor. His father’s quiet, expressionless response nettled his nerves.
The earl rose and poured two brandies, then gave one to Drex. “Your intention is to secure Ryan once you’ve wed?”
At Drex’s nod, his father asked, “And what of your marriage after Ryan is released? Will you have it annulled and leave us?”
“In my attempts to save Ryan, I besmirched Christina’s good name, which makes her my responsibility. I am not the sort of man to abandon a woman in need.”
The earl sighed. “I suppose I shall never convince you of my good intentions where your mother was concerned.”
“If your intentions were so good, why couldn’t you keep your pants fastened around her?”
“Greg seems to believe you succumbed to Lady Christina’s charms. If that’s true, you know about temptation.”
The earl’s words gave Drex pause. Yes, Lilli had taught him a lot about temptation. He’d always thought himself a man of strong will. She had proven him wrong. Had his father felt the same way about his pretty upstairs maid?
Drex sipped his brandy. “What I did or did not do with Christina is no one’s business. If you don’t want to help, I’ll find another way to marry her, maybe take her to Gretna Green.”
“And stain her name with the ton more than you have?”
Drex shifted, staring uncomfortably at the swag of blue and rose drapes.
The man was right. He had no palatable option but to remain here until he could make his bows into London society.
“I should have married Christina on Grand Bahama,” he said.
The earl nodded, his smile benevolent. “We shall remedy the situation posthaste. You’ll need to enter little season ahead. My brother’s wife, Lady Allyn, will oversee your training—”
“Training? For what?”
-168-
The Lady and the Dragon
His father nodded. “Dance, deportment, dress, manners. Things you must know to be well received.”
Drex shook his head, absorbing the information with shock. Could he not simply make an offer for the girl on the basis of being the earl’s son? “I had not planned on entering a season. I have no desire to rub shoulders with the ton. ”
“You must if you wish to wed Lady Christina.” He shrugged. “Manchester will be soliciting a husband for the girl during the little season, or so whispers indicate, but with his money, he can be somewhat choosy, even though the girl is ruined.”
Drex drank in that information—and the realization that his father was right. The man was already proving helpful. Though he did not have to like the earl, Drex knew he would be smart to listen.
* * *
That evening, Drex sat across from his father in the drawing room. At the earl’s summons, Lord Allyn, Drex’s uncle, entered the room. He stopped in the threshold, dressed to perfection in biscuit breeches and a green silk vest, and stared.
“George,” he said to the earl, dark eyes glued to Drex’s overlong hair and dangling earring. “Who is this…man?”
“Come in, Milton.” The earl gestured enthusiastically. “Come in. Where’s Agnes? I want her here as well.”
Lord Allyn looked to the earl, then back to Drex, as if afraid he might attack. “My lady wife is—”
“Right here,” broke in a female voice.
A thin woman entered the room, dressed in a watery gray. She stood only five feet, her fragile features almost untouched by time. Her expression was as wan as the shade of her dress.
Drex shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wishing like hell his father would not try to ingrain him in the family.
“Sit down, you two,” instructed the earl. “I’ll pour drinks. Agnes, a sherry?”
-169-
Shelley Bradley
“A word with you, brother,” his uncle said, grabbing the earl by the arm.
Allyn propelled his brother across the room, to a writing table against the window.”
“Who is this…miscreant? My God, man, he’s wearing an earring!” Allyn’s angry mutter carried to Drex’s ears.
The earl shrugged off his brother’s touch. “Get hold of yourself, Milton.”
As his father strode across the room, Drex tensed. If Lord Allyn didn’t like a miscreant in the house, he wasn’t likely to want one in the family. More puzzling, however, was his father’s behavior. Drex couldn’t see why a man with his determination to know his sons would ever have willingly cast his offspring aside.
“Milton, Agnes.” He glanced at each. “This is Drexell, one of the sons I began searching for years ago.”
Lord Allyn’s eyes dilated, turning from brown to black. “Your son? You cannot mean to take this…person in our home and treat him as if—”
“He’s flesh and blood?” the earl countered sharply.
“You—you don’t intend to make him the next earl, I hope.”
“I’m afraid so.” The earl turned away from his brother’s sputtering and faced the man’s wife. “Agnes, I’d like your help. He’ll need to be made ready for the little season, and I trust only you to teach him how to get on with the highest sticklers.”
“George, even if he has lovely manners, you know his birth will not be excused by some,” she pointed out.
The earl nodded. “Give him every other benefit possible, and money will open most doors. We’ve a very short time to prepare, three weeks, I believe.
You’ll have to work miracles.”
“Indeed,” the lady agreed, her face blank.
“You can’t mean to have my wife consort with him,” Lord Allyn protested.
“You know not what manner of person—” He huffed, fists clenched. “Clearly, he is no earl.”
-170-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drex watched the exchange, realizing he had displaced his uncle as heir to the earldom. As for as he was concerned, Lord Allyn could have the title. Still, he let the drama play out.
“Watch yourself,” the earl warned. “I’m not dead yet.”
* * *
Journal,
I have encountered the most maddening streak of bad luck! Ashmont’s by-blow has decided to give up his privateering ways and join the family. Equally disheartening, the earl’s health improves more each day, and no matter how I try to rid myself of his misbegotten son, I fail.
I tried to poison the miscreant. At the moment, he lies abed, losing the contents of his stomach on an hourly basis. Yet with every minute that passes, I know he will live.
With the little season approaching, Drexell will be ill-prepared to mingle with the ton. Ashmont won’t be embarrassed. He is the earl, after all. But the rest of his family will suffer the slurs, and worse to contemplate, the cuts. I grant that the outlaw hardly resembles the man who first knocked on our door, but he will not do!
I must continue to make plans that will rid me of Drexell forever and allow me the dreams denied by Ashmont’s foolish ways.
* * *
At Drex’s request, Greg arrived at the earl’s town house an hour before the little season’s first major social event. Drex ceased pacing, pulled on the snug white waistcoat about his middle and turned to face his long-time friend.
Greg stopped halfway across the room. “Is that really you?”
The stupefied expression Greg wore heartened Drex that Lilli wouldn’t recognize him. “None other.”
Greg’s mouth hung open. “I would not have recognized you, had you not owned up to your identity,” he said.
-171-
Shelley Bradley
“I look different, then?”
“I should say. Short hair, no earring or mask. You’re dressed in garments much better than serviceable clothing and boots. Your skin is no longer brown.” He laughed. “You look much like any London gentleman.”
“Truly?” Drex smiled. Perhaps his plan would work.
“Almost. I daresay you cut a better cloth than some of us more idle gentlemen.” He patted his rounding stomach. “The ladies will adore you, for both your looks and imminent title.”
“I only want one lady. What do you know of Christina?”
“She is set to be at the ball, and all of polite society is aflutter. They think Manchester rather audacious for foisting his soiled granddaughter on them in this desperate husband hunt.”
Drex felt resolve thicken, plugging his throat like hemp in a ship’s hole.
“His desperation should make my job easier.”
Greg shrugged. “At my club last night, I heard whispers that other men of greater connection but less wealth will be eager to court Lady Christina.”
Drex grabbed his gloves from the table beside him. “Then I shall have to work quickly, won’t I?”
As the two men went down and asked for the carriage, Greg said, “I hope your father’s health permits him to join us.”
“He will meet us there.”
Greg nodded. “It will aid your suit to have Manchester see you endorsed completely by your father. The ton will whisper less, too. Now remember, your attentions to Christina must not be too marked, else the gossip about her will simply multiply.”
“I must see her.” Drex toyed with his sleeves, trying to shut out the pounding of his heart. “I know I cannot tell her who I am yet, and I pray she does not guess—”
“Even your speech has an edge of culture now. She could not possibly guess,” Greg assured.
“Lady Allyn was quite insistent I rid my vocabulary of most four-letter words,” he remarked wryly.
-172-
The Lady and the Dragon
“If anyone could lead you through the ton’s intricacies in such a short time, despite your unfortunate illness, Lady Allyn could.”
Drex groaned. “Don’t remind me. My father’s physician assured me I knelt at death’s door. Perhaps I would have crossed the threshold had my father not looked after me.”
“You’re less angry with him, then?”
He shrugged. “I cannot divert my mind from my purpose to consider him now. I must win Christina and free Ryan.”
“Understood. And what will you do once you’ve won the fair Lady Christina?”
Drex smiled, envisioning a future of content. “I shall tell her all and hope she forgives me. If she does, no one will separate us.”
The carriage stopped and the two men exited to a dark drizzle and a throng of people waiting to enter the town house.
“Remember, you cannot dance with her more than once, perhaps twice, without raising eyebrows.”
“Unfortunately, I recall that bit of instruction.”
Greg turned for the door. “Good. Let’s go inside so you can capture Lady Christina’s heart—again.”
-173-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Fourteen
Several hours of polite smiles and hand-shaking passed before Drex finally spotted Christina across the room, alone. His heart stopped for an instant.
Then another.
Her golden hair swung in fat ringlets, unlike the smooth sheen of waves she’d worn at sea. Her narrow shoulders and waist told Drex she had not regained much, if any, weight since their parting.
He scanned her face anxiously, but the distance between them was too great to decipher her expression. Was she still angry? He drew in a deep breath, then walked with purpose toward her.
Greg restrained him with a hand on her shoulder. “Are you mad? You know you must be introduced to her.”
Drex swallowed his anticipation and forced his gaze to his friend’s face. “I’d forgotten.”
“Wait here. I shall find our hostess.”
Nodding absently, Drex slid a few paces closer to Lilli. Surreptitiously, he studied her face. The kiss of gold she’d acquired from the sun on their voyage to the Bahamas had faded to proper paleness. He ached upon seeing the listless, gray mood she wore like armor. Yet in the stiff set of her shoulders, she wielded a hint of anger as a warrior would a sword.
Greg arrived with their hostess before he could take another ill-advised step toward Christina.
“Lady Henningston, may I present Drexell Cain-Ashmont, Viscount Drakethorne,” his friend said hurriedly.
The stylish fortyish lady extended her gloved hand. Drex clasped it and bowed.
-174-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Your dear father wrote that you would be attending. I called at his house on Wednesday last, but you were not at home.”
Drex forced himself to smile, despite his urgency to be presented to Christina in his new guise. “I am the less fortunate for missing such a beautiful guest.”
“La, you have such a flattering tongue.” She smiled.
“Not at all,” he assured. “I wonder, however, if I could persuade you to introduce me to that lovely creature against the wall.” He nodded in Lilli’s direction.
Lady Henningston paused, her eyes growing rounder. “I can happily introduce you to many eligible ladies if you are in search of a wife.”
Drex gritted his teeth, restraining an urge to throttle the woman for setting down Christina. “Thank you for your kind offer. May we start with her?”
Brows raised, the lady replied, “If that is your wish.”
The trio made their way toward the wall. Lilli’s eyes widened as they closed in on her.
“Lady Christina, may I present Drexell Cain-Ashmont, Viscount Drakethorne,” their tight-lipped hostess murmured.
Heart pounding, Drex waited for her response. He held his breath, palms damp, praying she would extend her hand to him so he could touch her, just once, even through their gloves.
She merely inclined her head, green eyes conveying apathy.
Drex bowed to her. “I’m honored.”
“And you know Viscount Monroe,” Lady Henningston prodded.
Greg smiled. Christina nodded, adding a murmured “Hello.”
“Find me, should you wish to meet other young ladies,” their hostess said to Drex, then turned away.
“I should like to meet young ladies,” Greg called after Lady Henningston.
With a clap on the arm, Greg left Drex alone with Christina.
He turned to face her, happy to drink in her familiar features. Yet the animation she’d always displayed was absent. Guilt stabbed his gut. Why hadn’t she regained her spirit yet?
-175-
Shelley Bradley
“I beg your forgiveness, Lady Christina, for the awkward introduction. This is my first social function in London.”
She stared without response.
Drex smiled, wondering how much he could say without revealing himself or looking like a fool. “I confess, I’ve been eager to meet you since I first saw you across the room.”
Her gaze zeroed in on his face for an instant. Wariness dominated her features before she focused again on the crowd. “If you have come simply to ascertain if rumors of my scandalous behavior are true, please go.”
He laughed. “No, but I appreciate your candor. I simply enjoy a beautiful lady’s company.” The orchestra, silent for some ten minutes, took the front of the room again. “They’re forming a new set. Would you care to dance?”
“No.” She refused to look at him.
“Please take pity on a poor fool who’s only learned to dance. I cannot tell you how much I require the practice.”
She looked at him with wary speculation in her green eyes.
“Besides, once the others see the Earl of Ashmont’s long-lost misbegotten son dancing with such a graceful creature, certainly they will direct their silly whispers at me.”
To his right, an elderly woman gestured Christina toward the dance floor.
She faced the woman.
“Grandmother, I know nothing of—”
“Christina, remember your manners. People are watching.”
Jaw tensed, Christina swallowed tightly as he extended his arm to her.
With a hesitant stretch, she reached for him, fingers lying tentatively upon his forearm. She cast her glance straight ahead as they made their way to the floor.
They lined up across from one another along a row of dancers, women on one side, men on the other. He bowed; she curtsied. Two women on her left cast her snide, sidelong glances.
Resisting the urge to snap at their small-minded ways, he stepped forward to the music, meeting Christina in the middle. A rush of thrill, a tingle, infused him when their hands clasped.
-176-
The Lady and the Dragon
He had but a few moments, one brief whirl, before the dance dictated he release her.
When they returned to their places in the line, he watched other couples make the same foray into the middle he and Lilli had. He glanced surreptitiously at his partner. She didn’t clap, didn’t smile. But her little white-slippered foot tapped the floor in rhythm to the music.
Heartened, he smiled. She looked away, her strained posture and tense shoulders reasserting themselves.
The order of dance returned to them, dictating he take her hands and lead her in a dash between the rows. This time, as he took her hands, he gently squeezed.
She tore herself from his grip the moment the figure allowed. He only smiled in return.
When next the dance decreed they join hands, Drex found balled little fists in his palms and a determined glare on Lilli’s face.
“You’re too lovely to scowl,” he whispered above the music.
“I am not interested in your flattery.”
He shrugged as they stepped away, then leaned close. “A pity, since I’ve no desire to turn my attention elsewhere.”
They danced apart before Lilli could retort.
The music ended. Drex offered Lilli his arm for escort back to her grandmother. He walked her slowly about the room, standing a hint closer than propriety exactly allowed.
“What is it you seek?” she whispered hotly.
He paused. She was hardly in the mood to talk marriage. “Another dance?”
“Certainly not! You are an audacious cur—”
“Yes.” He cocked his head to one side. “And people will talk, no matter how properly either of us behaves. Still, if you wish to decline—”
“I do.” She snatched her hand off his sleeve. “Leave me.”
Drex paused before the wall from which he had escorted her. Lilli’s grandmother still stood to one side, speaking with another group of older ladies.
-177-
Shelley Bradley
“Then I shall settle for a smile,” he murmured.
She ignored his request with a dismissive sideways glare.
“No?” he questioned. “Then, rest assured, I will collect my smile tomorrow.”
With a simple nod, he turned about and left the ball, knowing she stared after him.
* * *
The following afternoon, Christina sat beside her grandmother as she received callers. Most were her friends, and Christina had known the older women all her life. By their demeanors, she knew they merely tolerated her soiled presence for her grandmother’s sake.
She had not one caller of her own, save a pair of unsavory fortune hunters she’d danced with last night. Grandmother had dismissed the two rapscallions in her own subtle but final way, which satisfied Christina. Her only other dance partner, Viscount Drakethorne, had not come. She was pleased, regardless of the irritating twinge of disappointment tugging at her.
Toying with the tips of her gloves, she smiled politely at something Lady Jersey said. Unbidden, her thoughts turned back to the previous night, to Drexell Cain-Ashmont.
He was arrogant and handsome, more so than the average London bachelor. And he’d been bent on charming her into a flirtation.
He was dangerous to her peace of mind.
She’d felt a frightening jolt, a hot spark, run the length of her body when their eyes first met. To deny that he disturbed her as a man, with his candid but urbane brand of charm, would be an utter lie. And if she could help it, she would avoid him, especially since he reminded her of the Bla—
“Christina, haven’t you heard me, dear? You have a visitor,” said her grandmother.
She plucked herself from her reverie and glanced up to find the very object of her thoughts entering the drawing room. He nodded politely to one starchy matron, flattered a lonely widow, endured an introduction of a countess’s
-178-
The Lady and the Dragon
horse-faced daughter, then complimented her grandmother for her exquisite taste in furnishings. The man oozed charm.
To her distress, he picked his way across the room, murmuring here and there until he reached her side. By happenstance, or her grandmother’s machinations, a seat on the sofa beside her chair became vacant. Predictably, he took it with a wry smile.
He lifted her fingers from the chair’s arm and brought her hand to his mouth, his lips lingering longer than proper.
“Lady Christina.” He inclined his head.
A spark wound down her spine. The tenor of his voice, even his dark eyes, seemed chillingly like the Black Dragon’s. Yet this man had no overlong hair, no earring, no beard, no bronzed skin. He wore only the finest garments. The voice and mannerisms were different. A few similarities couldn’t signify. The two men were worlds apart.
This man, though every bit as handsome as the Black Dragon, possessed charm with his looks. She would have to be on guard.
“Lord Drakethorne,” she replied.
“I do hope you’re not suffering sore toes and dirty slippers from my neophyte attempts at dancing.”
“My toes and slippers remain unscathed, my lord,” she answered, conscious of her heart’s faster beating. Reminding herself that men did not affect her, she drew in a deep breath.
“Then I may sleep well now, knowing I have learned the rudiments of all the polite dances, unless the waltz comes to England.”
“Too shocking, according to most.”
He smiled and leaned closer. “Tell me one woman here who doesn’t like to be shocked every now and again.”
“Lord Drakethorne!”
“Not that any would admit to such scandal,” he hurried to add. “Still, who doesn’t long for excitement in their life?”
-179-
Shelley Bradley
Christina’s palms turned damp beneath her gloves. She secretly yearned for the carefree excitement of her days aboard The Dragon’s Lair, even while she despised its captain.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know about such a thing.”
He shot her a sideways smile, eyes dancing beneath a roguish shag of dark hair. “Come now, I knew the instant I set eyes upon you that you were hardly of the same mealy-mouthed variety as the other London misses.”
More likely he’d been listening to rumors. Stiffening, Christina assured, “I strive to behave with complete propriety.”
“Are you not bored doing so?”
How did he know her so well? Though she had vowed since her return to behave with perfect decorum, and had so far, she could not deny that reckless streak within her wanted more. Such dangerous thoughts could only lead to further scandal and heartbreak. She pushed them aside.
“The season exists to conduct politics and make marriages. Many in the ton find such doings exciting in themselves.”
“I asked about you. What do you find exciting?”
Heart pounding, Christina glanced up to find Lady Jersey hanging on their every word. To her left, Grandmother was doing a good imitation of listening to her guests, but Christina knew the woman’s attention had strayed.
“I’m sure I have no notion what you mean.”
He leaned closer still. His fingers brushed her own in what appeared to be an accidental sweep. Christina knew better. Tingles plagued her body, feelings she remembered all too well from her summer’s escapade in the Caribbean.
“I think you’ve given the notion much thought. Is it shopping or tea with the ladies you find exciting? Perhaps it’s a good book or two.”
He paused to stroke his square, clean-shaven chin. She watched his fingers with unbidden interest.
“Or do you enjoy being courted?” he whispered.
She clenched her hands in her lap. Had someone asked her two days ago if she found a man’s company exciting, her answer would have been no. Today
-180-
The Lady and the Dragon
she could only lament that she found Drexell Cain-Ashmont’s unwelcome presence stimulating.
Christina opened her mouth, but her visitor stayed her caustic remark with a raised finger. “Pray, do not answer that last question.” He stood with a crooked smile that sent Christina’s heart into turmoil and her anxiety soaring.
“I think I should like to find the answer for myself.”
-181-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Fifteen
Drex arrived at his father’s house that evening, filled with Christina. Her scent, her voice. She still looked too thin, but he would change that once they were wed. He envisioned her round with his child and his heart swelled with hope.
He no more than crossed the threshold when his father approached. “Good news. Come with me.”
They trod upstairs. At the top, Lord and Lady Allyn stood.
“Hello. Fine day, isn’t it?” the earl said to both.
“Indeed,” Lady Allyn answered with a tight smile.
Her husband shot a glare at Drex, then transferred the scowl to his brother.
“Come, Agnes. I need a brandy.”
“I’m afraid Milton isn’t adjusting well to the family changes,” his father said with a sigh and a shake of his head.
“Good for you his wife keeps him in tow.”
“Agnes is a godsend,” he said as they entered the library.
The earl shut the door behind him quickly. “I received a note today.” His father smiled. “I’ve found Ryan.”
Drex felt his stomach jump up to his throat. “Truly? How?”
“I renewed a few contacts from years past and found someone willing to share that many of the impressed Americans who resisted the Admiralty’s treatment were brought to Newgate on trumped-up charges. I decided to pay Newgate’s goaler a visit, just in case. For a,” he cleared his throat, “small fee, he was willing to let me have five minutes with Ryan.”
“Is he well? He looked terrible—”
-182-
The Lady and the Dragon
“His condition should be much improved soon. I paid the goaler to upgrade your brother’s accommodations. I couldn’t buy his release. Manchester would hang him for that, but Ryan will have better care until we can think of something else.”
Drex stared at his father. Shock and confusion swarmed his system. The earl cared deeply about the well-being of a son he had never met?
Comprehension dawned. The man truly did want his sons.
He thrust a hand toward his father. “Thank you.”
The earl accepted the clasp, the new offer of a bond, with a smile so reminiscent of elated relief, Drex smiled back.
His father asked, “So how is Lady Christina today?”
“Withdrawn. Distrustful of all men, it seems. How can I persuade her to marry me?”
The earl shrugged. “Perhaps you cannot, at least not now. However, other rogues are hovering near. Lady Jersey is already gossiping about two fortune hunters who called before you.”
Anxiety tightened Drex’s gut. “I must act now. But how?”
“Ask Manchester for her hand, instead. You can bring her round to your way of thinking once the vows are spoken.”
Drex turned her father’s suggestion about in his head. The plan was good.
She could hardly say nay once her grandfather had chosen a man for her. She had nowhere else to run.
But she would be furious as hell with him.
“Manchester is tight with his money,” the earl offered. “He will see you more favorably if you refuse her enormous dowry.”
“And ask for the release of American sailors in Newgate instead?” Drex smiled.
His father clapped him on the shoulder. “We think alike.”
“For which I’m glad…Father.”
With a smile, Drex turned and left for Grovesnor Square.
* * *
-183-
Shelley Bradley
Christina shuddered at the feel of Lord Ralston’s arm about her. His breath was none too pleasant. The sweat on his palms dampened her dress. And he referenced plans to renovate his country estate, when everyone knew he hadn’t the funds.
Apparently, he’d assumed her desperation would cast him as a good candidate as her husband.
Christina grimaced, then said, “Lord Ralston, I am simply parched. Could you fetch me some punch?”
He didn’t quite hide his irritation with a tight smile. “Wait here.”
The moment the balding man disappeared into the swirl of the shimmering crowd, Christina darted for the balcony. The door had been thrown open to release some of the steam in the ballroom.
Outside, winter nipped at her nose as she walked to the rail. Wrapping her arms about herself, Christina decided she’d gladly freeze to hide here all night if it meant avoiding Lord Ralston.
Suddenly, she felt a large, warm garment blanket her shoulders. She turned to find Drexell Cain-Ashmont standing behind her, minus his coat.
His dark eyes glittered in the golden moonlight. “Better?”
The gesture, like his voice, struck her as intimate. Disturbed, she shrugged his coat off and handed it back to him. “Thank you, but I wasn’t cold.”
“I don’t recall your teeth chattering when we last met,” he teased. “I’m not usually so forgetful.”
“Gentlemen don’t notice such things,” she chastised.
“Which is why I’ve always thought gentlemen to be silly and tedious. Who enjoys the kind of man who paws his dance partner and talks of his hunting dogs more fondly than his children?”
Christina flashed him a sideways glance. A vivid image of Lord Ralston and his expensive, slobbering mutts materialized. She tried to repress the upward curving of her mouth.
He smiled and draped the dark coat over her shoulders again, cocooning her in inviting warmth.
-184-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drat if the thing didn’t smell musky, just like him. Even the scent, something strong and male, brought back unwanted memories of her time with the Black Dragon, of the vulnerabilities of her heart. She pushed the recollections away.
“Why did you follow me out into the cold?” she asked.
His wide-eyed expression revealed mock horror. “I couldn’t run the risk of such a lovely damsel perishing in this chill.”
“So you and your coat came to my rescue?”
He nodded, expression wistful. “I only regret I could not find a white horse to complete my picture of knighthood.”
Christina found herself smiling as Lord Ralston returned.
“There you are,” he said, scowl upon his perspiring face. “I’ve come to see you to supper.”
Christina’s mind raced. Having no wish to consort for the next hour with this damp creature whose smell had become quite unpleasant, she grasped for a way to leave him behind.
“I’m afraid she’s already promised me that honor,” Lord Drakethorne answered, rescuing her again. He turned her to her with a proffered arm. “Shall we?”
Christina conveyed her appreciation with her smile.
“A stroll in the gardens later, perhaps?” Lord Ralston called desperately to her retreating figure.
“Lord Drakethorne has already given me the tour,” she lied.
Once inside, she laughed for the first time in months. It felt freeing, refreshing, like spring might soon bloom inside her. She yearned to cling to the feeling, to forget contemptible exploiters like the Black Dragon inhabited this earth.
“Ah, the fair Christina smiles. Where is da Vinci when life’s truly memorable moments occur?”
She laughed. “My smile is hardly memorable.”
“You must allow me to disagree. Were you to try, I believe your glow could light up the entire night sky.”
-185-
Shelley Bradley
“You flatter me too much,” she chastised, but couldn’t quite erase the smile from her face.
“A difficult thing to avoid with someone so lovely.”
Lord Drakethorne made her feel beautiful and worthwhile again. Such dangerous feelings. Her heart wasn’t invincible. The Black Dragon had proven so. Yet even as she cautioned herself against a burgeoning warmth, she feared that tonight such admonitions were useless.
She sobered. “I am convinced of your charm, my lord. No need to keep wielding it so intently.”
“Around you, I cannot seem to stop.” Lord Drakethorne paused. “If you’re hungry, I will see you to the supper room.”
“I’m afraid I am going to cry off and go home.”
“Another time?” he queried.
She paused, not certain how to answer. Should she encourage him?
Tonight, his demeanor had seemed exemplary of the kind of husband she required, charming but not overbearing.
“Thank you for rescuing me from Lord Ralston,” she murmured.
“It was this knight’s pleasure, my lady. Until we meet again?” he whispered over her hand.
Discreetly, she slid her palm from his grasp and, with her heart pounding, turned away.
-186-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Sixteen
Christina stared out the window at gray drizzle that matched her mood. It seemed appropriate that rain should fall on her wedding day.
Of course she’d known she would marry quickly. She simply had not believed the day would come quite this soon. Still, best to marry someone pleasant now so the gossip would die. Wise to align herself with someone not likely to rip out her heart.
She shrugged. Drexell Cain-Ashmont would do.
True, she found his traditional approach in asking her grandfather for her hand irritating. After all, she would have to live with him. Her opinion was important, and Christina meant to make certain he understood that from now on. She would not be tied to a man to whom her wishes were inconsequential.
She turned back toward the fireplace as the Chinese mantel clock chimed.
Ten in the morning.
The sounds of shuffling and voices at the front door below heralded the punctual arrival of her betrothed and his family.
A soft knock on the door precipitated her grandmother’s voice. “Christina, darling, are you ready? It’s time.”
She opened the door, and her grandmother folded her arms about her like a warm, sun-dried quilt.
“You look wonderful, child.” Her faded lips turned up in a smile. “I’ve a feeling Lord Drakethorne will make you happy.”
Christina frowned. “He married me to free Americans from Newgate and add credence to his position in the ton.”
“Perhaps, but I believe he is taken with you. If you’ll forget the past, contentment will be yours.”
-187-
Shelley Bradley
Forget the past? Though Drexell Cain-Ashmont was gentler, he had yet to prove he was something more than a manipulative cad, any different from Grandfather and the Black Dragon.
Christina pasted on the façade of a smile and followed her grandmother down the hall. Inside the drawing room, the groom and his family waited. Their minister stood in the corner.
Lord Drakethorne sat in a high-backed chair of creamy velvet, fidgeting with the timepiece in his hand. At her entrance, he looked up. Relief loosened his features, and their gazes met. Warmth sprouted in her belly. She’d forgotten his brilliant smile, the one that made her feel desired and female again.
As his gaze lingered, making a discreet sweep of her body, the room receded in her vision. The other occupants seemed to disappear. The heat enveloping her chest dipped lower, to her nether regions, reminding her of her wanton nature. Reminding her that he would expect to share her bed tonight.
She dropped her gaze to the floor as he approached her.
“You look beautiful,” he whispered.
Gazing up at him, no response came to mind. He frightened her; she couldn’t remain unaffected by him.
Her grandfather saved her from the awkward pause in conversation. He cast a jaundiced gaze at Lord Drakethorne as her grandmother busily seated everyone. The minister motioned Christina and her groom to the front of the room, positioned them by the kneeling mats and began to read from his Bible.
At her side, Lord Drakethorne stood close, smelling of musk and man, as always. A sideways glance proved he looked better than sin in biscuit breeches, a crisp ivory vest and a burgundy coat. He smiled nicely enough, but she knew better than to allow him to penetrate the armor around her heart, no matter how manageable he seemed. She would not survive another broken heart.
Christina heard the minister murmur her name. She returned her attention to him and made the appropriate responses. Lord Drakethorne did the same, then took her hand in his warm, callused one. He slid a cool band of gold down her third finger, and the minister pronounced them man and wife. Lord Drakethorne clutched her hand, wearing a triumphant smile.
-188-
The Lady and the Dragon
As the day crept by and shadows lengthened, Christina grew more nervous.
Her new husband did not seem the kind of man easily dissuaded on his wedding night with a simple no. Could she bare her body to him without exposing her heart and soul?
Drat! How could she escape the dangerous possibilities her wedding night—
and every other wedded night—would bring? Fingers pressed to her temples, she shook her head. Somehow, she would survive her fate with dignity—and her heart unscathed.
The groom’s family departed after the evening’s brandy and cigars.
Scowling, Grandfather retired to his study. Christina resisted seclusion with her new husband by lingering over a glass of sherry, while her grandmother rose to leave, looking as if she wanted to impart advice about the coming intimacies. Christina looked away, hoping to avoid such a speech. The old woman left.
“Your grandmother seems to think I’m likely to chop you into little pieces and eat you for dessert,” her new husband remarked.
With an awkward shrug, Christina rose, resisting the urge to flee. She knew what Lord Drakethorne would want tonight. But the thought of sharing such herself with him made her tremble. At moments he reminded Christina of the Black Dragon. At other times, he was a virtual stranger. She knew next to nothing of her husband.
Beside her, he also rose, then reached for her hands. Christina allowed him to clasp her trembling fingers. Looking into the captivating sparkle of his dark eyes, she felt a stirring of feelings she’d believed dead.
“You need not be afraid of me.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I want only to make you happy.”
The fact her happiness mattered to him on any level filled Christina with wary hope. If she could ever forget the past and remember her quest for a pleasant, scandal-free future, she might survive this night.
He squeezed her hands again before releasing them, his expression conveying disappointment at her silence. “I need to have a word with your grandfather.”
-189-
Shelley Bradley
Did his departure mean he was not interested in pursuing their marriage bed, or was he simply giving her a moment’s privacy before he planned to invade her body?
She studied his retreating back. The confident stride hardly looked indicative of a man not interested in a woman’s charms.
After his exit, Christina made her way to her room. He would come to her tonight, want to explore and possess her.
God help her.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Drex knocked on Lilli’s bedroom door. Their wedding night had come—a night he had looked forward to for interminable weeks. After long days of dance and deportment lessons, Drex had lain awake in his father’s house fantasizing of the night he could strip away Lilli’s clothes and restraint and make love to her again. Afterward, she would realize she cared for him. He would reveal himself to her, and together, they would greet a free Ryan. The plan seemed perfect.
She cracked the door, her once expressive face closed. Taut shoulders and stiff posture dominated her bearing. The woman before him, she wasn’t the careless, carefree Lilli he remembered from their days together aboard the Lair.
This tense, careful woman was Christina—a woman he did not know well. A woman he would have to tread carefully with if he wanted his Lilli back.
Endless moments stretched between them as they stood frozen, him waiting for admittance, her unwilling to grant it. His whirling thoughts grew as he took in the agitated rise and fall of her chest, the slight pursing of her full mouth. They stood tantalizingly close. He inhaled her breath, her scent, so achingly floral and familiar.
His eyes made a quick scan of her thinly-clad body. A spark of anticipation cut through him, igniting his desire. Christina grabbed a wrapper and struggled into the white garment. As she yanked it closed, she stared at him with angry green eyes.
He cleared his throat. “Shall we talk for a while?”
-190-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Talk?” she challenged. A bitter laugh followed. The cynical sound surprised him.
She was afraid, he realized. A new man, a new life. It seemed logical that such adjustments would breed anxiety.
He nudged through the door, then shut it behind him with a click.
“Christina, you are my wife. I cannot deny that I want you.”
The honesty of his soft words hung in the air between them. Christina touched a shaking hand to her chest and looked away.
Drawing in a sharp breath, she crossed to the other side of the room.
“Before we commence with the distasteful business of marriage, perhaps we should talk after all.”
The acidic tone of her voice raised Drex’s brow. He strode across the room and seated himself on the stool at her dressing table. The early evening moonlight gleamed with pale vigor through the window, giving her an ethereal glow. Silver light swirled about her. He swallowed against the rise of awareness.
“I am no simpering miss, I assure you,” she snapped.
Drex had to smile. “About that, there could be no mistake.”
She raised her chin, preparing for a fight. “I intend to further the cause of women in society, and you cannot stop me.”
He cocked his head in thought and scanned. Why had she chosen this particular subject tonight? “As you please.”
Her delicate hands balled into fists. “I’ll read what I want, think what I want, and do what I want.”
Drex wondered exactly what scheme she was planning, but decided he’d do well to play her game. He nodded.
Instead of placating her, his accord drew her taut-faced fury. “You do not own me. No man does!”
He said nothing, taking in her squared shoulders and gritted teeth, along with her earthy beauty. She wanted a fight he wasn’t eager to give. But he knew her enough to believe she wouldn’t give up until he pursued her path.
“Do you understand?” she asked, breath harsh.
-191-
Shelley Bradley
Drex let silence fill the air for a moment. “I understand. You like adventure and things you know you shouldn’t.”
Her eyes widened as she gasped. “That is not what I said.”
Drex rose and approached her, flashing her a shark’s smile when she stood her ground. “Of course it is. You like being where you shouldn’t, behaving in ways you know you shouldn’t.”
Christina’s bowed mouth dropped open. Her fists clenched. “Whatever you’ve heard, I am a lady.”
“Yes. And ten times the woman of any other in London. That is the reason I made you my wife.”
Christina drew in a ragged breath, momentarily silenced.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured.
Her eyes turned wary and wide as she retreated a step.
“I know what you want.” Her voice shook.
“Good. There shouldn’t be any confusion between us.”
He moved closer, closer. Christina stepped back once, then again. The third time, her back hit the wall. Drex followed, trapping her against the hard surface.
“I’ve longed to taste your sweet mouth,” he whispered as his gaze delved hers.
She opened her mouth, probably to deliver a stinging retort. But he leaned closer, mere inches from her. He could have touched her easily, in a multitude of places. He didn’t. Instead, he stood so close a whisper of air passed between them.
He found his breath trapped in his chest, his heart racing. The pulsing at her neck echoed his heartbeat. He planned to put his lips there first.
Her shallow breath caressed him like a feather, tantalizing. It transported him back in time. He could almost feel tangy Bahamian air on his skin and sweet Lilli moaning in his arms.
Finally, he touched her. She gasped as he caressed her shoulder. His fingers glided their way to the bare skin behind her neck. She exhaled on shaky breath.
-192-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drex held in a groan. He slid his hand up to her face, then to her hair. One by one, he pulled the pins free as she stood, silent, staring with those wide green eyes he couldn’t forget, and trembling. “I’ve waited forever to kiss you.”
Though he wanted to devour her, Drex forced himself to brush her lips with his own. A gentle feathering, as if taking the sugar from atop a cookie. She stiffened. He tasted her again, rediscovering the flavor and texture of her lips.
Christina’s behavior might be different, but somewhere under that starch was his Lilli.
He pulled away, trailing the pad of his thumb across her mouth before he covered her lips once more. This time, he penetrated her mouth and wrapped her stiff form in his embrace. His tongue swirled and played with hers, mated and beguiled.
Slowly, Christina relaxed in his arms. He encouraged her, kissing her neck, nibbling on her lobe, testing the fluttering pulse at her throat. He knew her breathy gasps, and the sounds filled him with triumph.
Slowly, her arms wound about his neck. Drex felt his blood pump through his veins in icy hot streams. His belly tightened. His cock hardened. He devoured her lips with a searing kiss.
Without warning, without reason, Christina wrenched from his grasp and turned her profile to him. Her tense bearing had returned, warning him away.
But with golden hair streaming down her back in an angel’s cloud and golden light bathing her in warmth, Drex succumbed to his yearning to touch her again.
As he caressed her shoulder, she turned her face to him, her expression flat. Stung, he dropped his hand to his side.
“Last summer, I fell in love,” she said without inflection.
Drex smiled softly, wonder infusing him like brilliant sunlight after a long winter. She hadn’t forgotten him. She truly had loved him. Perhaps she still did. Elation filled him. He reached for her again.
“He was a criminal by society’s standards, a pirate to most. I came to trust him, with both my heart and my body.”
Drex touched his hand to the small of her back and tried to nudge her closer. “I know all that. Christina, darling—”
-193-
Shelley Bradley
She twisted away from his touch. “I laid with a masked stranger whose name I never knew. I gave myself freely to a bastard who cut my heart out and left me to bleed. It won’t happen again.”
Drex let his hand fall away, stunned by her bitterness. He frowned as Christina walked past him to the center of the room. Immersed in gilded light, she discarded her wrapper, then her nightrail.
Naked, she faced him. Moonlit shadows clung like a phantom lover to the swells and hollows of her body. Pouty breasts and shimmering pink nipples beckoned. The sweet curve of her waist, accentuated by shades of gray, lengthened into a flat stomach and long legs.
Drex lost his breath, his mind, as he stared at the temptation she offered.
God, he’d waited, forever it seemed.
Then his stare made its way up again. He took in her squared shoulders and taut cheeks, her face a beautiful fortress guarding her tattered heart.
Drex couldn’t move, couldn’t speak or comprehend.
Christina cast him another flat stare, then made her way to the bed. Drex’s gaze consumed the lithe curve of her waist, the graceful slope of her spine as it dipped to her pale, round buttocks and slender thighs. The ability to breathe left him.
She was angry, he realized through the haze of his desire. The sharp whip of her wrist as she pulled back the bed sheets told him so. With all the regal bearing of a princess, she climbed onto the bed and lay passively across its surface.
“Take me if you want,” she offered tonelessly. “It means nothing to me.”
Drex absorbed her verbal blow like a punch. He wanted her, had thought of nothing else all day. She wanted no part of him or this side of their marriage.
Across the room, Christina directed her unblinking stare at the ceiling, her naked body tense and unmoving.
Had he really hurt her that much last summer?
He cleared his throat. “Christina, not like this.”
She didn’t look at him. “This is all I have to offer, all I will ever give you.”
-194-
The Lady and the Dragon
The steely pitch of her monotone voice told Drex she meant every word. If he caressed and kissed her, she would try her damnedest to merely endure his touch. If she did respond to him, he suspected she would never forgive him.
If he told her his identity now, she would hate him forever.
Damn it, what a tangle! He’d made the right decision to ransom her, given his situation, but had no idea how to reverse the damages. He would simply have to start over, court her again. Find a way to make her fall in love with him once more.
Drex strode for the door and flung it open, his scowl an unyielding challenge. “I don’t want a martyr. I want a wife.”
* * *
Two long weeks later, Christina rose from her seat during the chasm of awkward silence immediately following dinner. Pressing at her temples to lend credence to her headache, she fled from her husband’s omnipresent stare.
She paused before exiting, her gaze falling on Lord Drakethorne’s now familiar features. A mistake. The man couldn’t look anything but powerful, she concluded. Her palms turned damp beneath her gloves just looking at him.
After racing to her room in Ashmont’s town house, she shut the door and stood in the dark. She should have called for her maid, but didn’t. Instead, she pondered her new husband.
Lord Drakethorne and his magnetism would be easy to succumb to—too easy. He seemed content to maintain his distance without demand. He’d left flowers on her breakfast plate last week. The volume of Byron’s poetry two days ago had been a surprise, as well. Not because he’d given her a gift, but because he seemed to ask nothing in return. At least, not yet.
But she knew what he wanted. Worse, she feared he could make her want it, too.
Christina drifted to the window and parted the sheer curtains. Unless she controlled her emotions, Lord Drakethorne could win her over, placate her with his charm—and control her for the rest of her life. Then again, he might simply choose to use and abandon her, taking mistress after mistress after he’d tired
-195-
Shelley Bradley
of her. Christina couldn’t bear that pain and humiliation. Being abandoned once had been enough.
But his exit on their wedding night… She had never expected the reprieve.
Would he really wait until she was ready to give more than the shell of her body to him? Such an idea confounded her, as much as his abstinence the past two weeks. He could take her. The law gave him that right. Why, then, did it matter to him that she wasn’t willing to give him more than mere sex?
A knock sounded moments later. His knock, she knew. Funny, she’d already memorized its cadence and volume. Her heart pounded as she straightened the bodice of her dress and her shaking voice bade him to enter.
He didn’t hesitate. The door came open, and he strode to the center of the room. Long moments passed. He did nothing more than stare. His intensity spoke volumes on his mood.
“Go away. I have a headache,” she said.
“I won’t stay.”
He walked to the window. The full moon cast a beam of pale light on his features. The jut of his chin, the angle of his nose and those eyes—all resembled the Black Dragon. So much it hurt. Yet she knew no matter how haunting the similarities, reality was much different. No matter how much she wanted to blame Lord Drakethorne for her pain, she could not.
Yet she refused to let him into her thoughts, where he could cause more anguish.
“Christina, I understand that you’ve been hurt. The man who hurt you surely knows his actions were wrong. I can only say that his reasons must have been good to give you up willingly.”
“You’re defending him? The knave who took your wife’s maidenhood?” she challenged, mouth open in incredulity.
Her husband closed his eyes and reached out to grasp the window sill. “I think we should forget the past. Both of us.”
Christina turned her back to him. “I offered you my body, quite freely.”
He closed the distance between them and touched her shoulders. “Not freely. Reluctantly. I want all of you.”
-196-
The Lady and the Dragon
The gentle yet provocative timbre of his voice made her tremble. He meant what he said. Every word. God help her.
Tears stung her eyes. “I have nothing more to give.”
“You have a heart,” he whispered in her ear.
A tremor whisked down her spine, all the way to her toes. She twisted free from his grasp, then stepped away, smoothing a shaking hand down her dress.
“Christina, I will not hurt you. I give you my word.”
“Words mean very little to me, my lord.”
His footsteps ate up the ground between them. Christina wasn’t surprised to feel his hand wrap about her arm. He turned her around to face him.
“It’s Drexell,” he urged. “Can you not even say my name?”
“Such informality between us does not suit me.”
He released her. “This isn’t over. I will make you my wife in every way, by your choice, in your time. Not before.”
-197-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Seventeen
Another two weeks slid by. Still Drexell demanded nothing of her.
Christina pushed the surprise from her mind and wandered about the library, lamenting that she’d most likely waste this crisp winter sun indoors, alone. She missed people around her and longed for the days when dresses and matching slippers consumed her afternoons before glittering evenings of dance.
Though she could not fathom why, she missed her husband. Turning away from the bookshelves, she walked to the hearth and sat on the blue settee with a sigh. In the first few weeks of their marriage, she’d found his distance relieving, a godsend even. Recently, something had changed.
The sound of rapid footsteps outside the door brought Christina’s gaze around. Drexell paused, scanning the room.
“Good morning. Have you seen my father?” he asked.
She’d never known a man so patient. Why did he behave so?
She gave him a halting smile. “I—he left earlier.”
Remembrance burst across his face as he snapped his fingers. “I’d forgotten. He had an appointment this morning.”
After a precise pivot, her husband left. Christina exhaled, realizing she’d been holding her breath during his brief visit.
She stared at the vacant doorway. Lonely and empty described her mood.
Her grandmother suggested she was punishing Drexell for the Black Dragon’s deeds. Perhaps it was true.
No, this had nothing to do with Drexell. She was just restless. Confining herself to the house had never appealed.
-198-
The Lady and the Dragon
Suppressing a sprouting smile, Christina dashed to change her dress, then strode to the stables. If Drexell planned an outing, it seemed a likely place to find him.
Inside the stable, the scents of hay and beast blended with wet earth from a recent rain. She spotted Drexell atop a huge bay, crooning to the skittish animal. The shadows enhanced the dark intensity of his eyes, the chiseled angles of his face.
She fiddled with her riding habit, unsure of her welcome. “Where are you going?”
“For a ride.” He patted the horse’s head. “She’s been favoring her hind leg.
My father wanted to test her, see if she has improved.” He paused, his smile uncertain. “Would you, ah… Are you interested in coming along?”
Christina glanced outside. The sun’s golden light seemed to sweeten the chorus of the birds’ song in the air.
“I should like that.”
In minutes, a groom saddled another horse and they departed.
Through the morning chill, they drifted without direction, without words.
Christina peeked at Drexell, wondering at his thoughts. Did he ever think of her, still want her?
“How is her leg?” she asked, to fill the silence.
He shrugged. “There’s no limp. I daresay, she not likely to win at Ascot anytime soon, but she’s healing.”
Christina had never been at a loss for conversation in her life. Today, with Drexell, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Soon they reached Hyde Park, the center of the ton’s afternoon bustle. This morning, they found it nearly empty, a multi-hued wilderness cultivated for the eye’s pleasure.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Drexell said quietly.
She looked around. Buckingham stood in the distance, a stony sentinel.
Grass, trying to unearth the first of spring green stretched up to the banks of the Serpentine. Crocuses and snowdrops would soon douse the park with their
-199-
Shelley Bradley
sweet scent. The spindly branches of trees criss-crossed the cloudless winter sky.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. “I never really noticed it. Mostly, I traversed Rotten Row, seeing others and being seen.”
He laughed. “When I was young, my mother told me that Oliver Cromwell was nearly killed here in this park when he fell from his carriage and was dragged behind it.”
“No.” She tried not to grin. “You must be teasing.”
“It’s truth. And worse, his gun went off in his pocket.”
Christina laughed until her sides hurt. She couldn’t picture the stuffy Cromwell suffering such indignity well.
Drexell turned his face to her, his dark eyes contemplative. “You should smile more. It’s lovely.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Did you grow up in London?”
His faraway gaze matched his nod. “In Whitechapel.”
She knew nothing of his past, of him. To learn he’d been raised in the Whitechapel squalor stunned her. “How did you find your father?”
He hesitated. “He found me.”
Drexell pulled on the bay’s reins and brought her to a halt. “She’s favoring her leg again somewhat.”
Christina watched as he dismounted. She stopped her own horse. “How will you get her home?”
He shrugged. “Walk her, I suppose.”
Though Drexell seemed perfectly capable of such a trip, it seemed petty to trouble him. “My mount will carry us both.”
He paused, his dark eyes captivating hers with an enigma of a stare.
“Thank you.”
She smiled shyly. Christina knew she had never been demure, yet the emotion seemed appropriate, a reflection of her hopeful uncertainty. Should their marriage be more than a hollow shell? He didn’t seem an unworthy man, unlike—
-200-
The Lady and the Dragon
Christina broke off the thought when he flashed her a warm smile that vaporized her composure. She drew in a shaky breath. A seductive husband who seemed to understand her yet demanded nothing? She could have married worse men, much worse.
Drexell tied the injured bay to her mare, then pulled himself up behind her.
The hot breadth of his chest enveloped her back. His warm exhalations played at her neck.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
Other than the fact she could hardly breathe because she felt his presence acutely with every nerve in her body? “Perfectly.”
His hands came around either side of her and grabbed the reins. She’d been expecting it, but the sight of his calloused and tapered fingers inches from her waist washed her with a wave of heated awareness. Goodness, what was the matter with her?
“Ready?” he asked.
A note, some sort of suggestion, lay in the undertone of his question. The intimation should have worried or angered her. But the spike of excitement piercing Christina, the sliver of thrill, made her turn. She glanced at Drexell over her shoulder. Their eyes met, his face inches away. His dark gaze dropped to her mouth.
Time stopped. The rhythm of her breathing, her heart, increased, as if she’d been dancing one country reel after another. Yet she’d hardly moved a muscle.
He wanted her. Badly. He made no attempt to alter the strained set of his jaw or hide the flare of passion in his eyes.
Desire, pure and undeniable, raced through her blood. She wanted him, wanted to trust him, when he inched closer, his mouth hovering deliciously close to her own.
He paused a mere breath away and stopped.
Christina felt his breath on her cheek, felt the sensuality of his gaze like a tangible touch. Her insides quivered.
He remained motionless.
-201-
Shelley Bradley
Suddenly, she knew he would not kiss her until she raised her mouth that last inch to his.
Her heart began to beat wildly. Powerful longing warred with cautious self-doubt. At that moment, she trusted him more than she trusted herself.
Perspiration broke out on her brow, despite the cool air.
“Christina?” he urged.
She drew in a mind-clearing breath, but couldn’t stop the thought that his mouth would be a firm, erotic heaven, a balm to her soul.
But once she had surrendered, would he remain her good knight? Or become a controlling autocrat? Or simply leave her?
Christina looked away. “I—I think we should go now.”
* * *
Greg dropped in the following afternoon without warning. When the dandified viscount loosened his cravat from his neck, pulling it askew, Drex knew something was wrong.
“Has Manchester contacted you yet?” Greg asked.
Drex rose from his chair by the fire and set his coffee aside with a clink.
“Should he?”
“He released the American sailors from Newgate today.”
Faster than a bolt of lightning, Drex crossed the room to Greg’s side. “Ryan is free?” He laughed. “It worked. I knew it! Where is he? Are they being held somewhere temporarily?”
Greg paused. “Manchester released everyone but Ryan.”
The words sunk in slowly. Drex felt the air leave his body, felt himself struggling for breath, like a drowning man.
“Manchester refused to release Ryan until the Black Dragon is caught or killed.”
The familiar tones of Greg’s voice brought Drex back from his numbness.
Confusion wrinkled his brow. “Bastard! What the hell should I do now? This marriage was my last hope.”
-202-
The Lady and the Dragon
Greg laid a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“God’s teeth, I must either give myself into the hangman’s care or die now.”
Drex whirled away. “Why can’t something work out according to plan, just once?”
“I wish I had the answer,” Greg said from across the room. His usually buoyant pale features matched the gray of his coat.
“I’m not in the mood to die, damn it.” He paced.
Long strides took him across the room again, and he raked a hand through his short hair. His fingers sought his left lobe for the earring he wore, then remembered he’d doffed it weeks ago. Christ, nothing was familiar to him now, not this land, not his family or their society. Not his clothes, his speech or manners. Especially not his emotions for his beautiful but stubborn wife.
“Death does seem drastic,” Greg conceded.
“If only I could convince Manchester the Black Dragon is no more…” Drex sighed. An inkling of an idea wound into his thoughts. He smiled.
“Oh, no. Now what trick have you tucked up your sleeve?”
“What if,” Drex began, holding up a dramatic finger, “we led everyone to believe the Black Dragon had indeed died?”
Greg’s blond brows folded in a frown. “Feign your death?”
“Exactly.” His smile widened. “I’ll tell Hancock to fetch my clothing tomorrow night, then have him arrange a drowning. All they’ll find of me is a scrap of my shirt, a boot, and just so there’s no question of my identity, my mask. The body will have drifted down the river Thames, into the ocean.”
Greg paused as if in thought. “By George, it might work.”
“I will make it work.” Drex clapped his friend on the back.
But before he killed his alter ego forever, Drex decided he would pay his wife a visit—in costume. The sentiment she harbored for the masked privateer appeared so deep, she still fancied herself in love with him.
He had to let the Black Dragon help him to win her affections again and turn them to favor her ever-patient husband.
-203-
Shelley Bradley
“Greg, did I hear you say your latest mistress is an actress?” Drex asked. At his friend’s nod, he asked, “How would she like to help me with a small transformation?”
* * *
Christina rolled over in her cold bed and opened one eye. Had she really heard a thud at her door or had she been dreaming?
Her chamber looked the same, a bedside stand and a book, a cluttered dressing table, a velvet settee in sunny yellow. The door connecting her room to her Drexell’s remained closed.
Thump. Christina whirled around and scanned the other side of the room.
Her white-curtained window let in muted moonlight—and illuminated a familiar silhouette.
Dark hair fell to his shoulders, glittering gold looped through his ear, a white shirt hung open to his waist and a glittering dagger rested at his thigh.
The Black Dragon.
Christina rubbed her eyes, certain she must be dreaming. When she looked up again, he still stood beside her window.
He looked as imposing as ever, menacing in shadow, like some phantom of the night. Her pulse quickened, along with her anger.
“Oh my… You!” She yanked the covers to her chin. “How did you get in?”
“Your windows are easy to pry open, Lilli. You should have someone look into that.”
“My window is not at ground level,” she protested, then realized she should be shouting a thousand other words.
“A minor detail.” He waved her argument away. “You’re looking well. Very well, in fact.”
“How dare you come here! My husband could walk in—”
“Husband?” He laughed. “I see you missed me a great deal.”
“I shall scream,” she warned. “I shall bring every man and woman in this house running.”
-204-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Wait.” He held up a large hand. “I merely popped in to ask you a question.
You can’t want to see me die for it.”
She drew in shallow breaths for long moments. He deserved torture and a death. But why give the hangman all the pleasure?
“Ask quickly. In five minutes, I vow I will scream.”
He nodded. “Your grandfather continues to thwart me.” He stepped closer.
“Since I never received the hostage I sought, I must abduct you and ransom you again. How quickly can you be ready to leave?”
Christina felt her mouth drop open. “You will have to kill me first! You took my innocence, you bastard, and led me to believe I could rely on you. I will not be used again.”
“I could have left you on Grand Bahama.”
“It hardly matters,” she hissed. “The outcome would have been the same.”
He stepped forward and grabbed her arm. “My mission is not about your feelings. I have a task to accomplish. You seemed to enjoy the previous adventure. We’ll simply have another one. If your husband didn’t mind sharing you once…perhaps he won’t mind again.”
She twisted away from his touch and jumped to her feet. “He will mind, as will I. I am married now. Happily, to a man who is both patient and kind. I will not accompany a cur like you anywhere.”
“Kind?” He laughed. “Lilli, kindness won’t curl your toes on a cold winter night. A kind milquetoast of a husband can’t possibly make you feel the kind of passion we shared.”
Christina advanced on the Black Dragon, feeling as if her anger had become a simmering volcano. “Drexell is twice the man you could ever hope to be. And four minutes of your five have passed. I suggest you run now.” She leaned forward, chest thrust forward, chin up. “Do not ever dare to come back.”
-205-
Shelley Bradley
Chapter Eighteen
An hour later, night shadows cast their murky tones on the dockside streets Drex traversed to The Dragon’s Lair. Unarmed, he felt naked and heartily wished secrecy had not prevented him from bringing his own vehicle.
But too many sticky questions would arise if anyone connected him with the Black Dragon’s crew.
Drunken revelry abounded, blending with the smells of salt and sewage. A man in the distance lurched toward a light-skirt, singing a bawdy ballad at the top of his lungs.
All seemed normal. No reason for hesitation.
Yet Drex felt eyes upon him, from everywhere it seemed, despite the fact he spied no one but the drunken songster.
He passed a darkened ale house and rounded the corner. Drex saw a dark blur of movement and a flash of metal. He turned and found a burly man pulling away from the uneven Tudor wall—and coming at him.
Drex’s blood pounded. His heart beat double time as the man grabbed his shoulder and pulled him forward, trying to impale Drex on the blade thrust at his abdomen.
He had no time to think before he swerved away from the oncoming blade, dodged a swipe of the man’s fist and grabbed his attacker’s hair. He yanked on the greasy strands, satisfied at the man’s howl of pain. He pinned the man in place with a knee at his testicles.
“What the hell do you want?” he growled.
The knave only grunted and twisted from his grasp. He kicked out at Drex, connecting with his shin. The blade in his assailant’s hand arced toward him.
-206-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drex turned and dodged, then retaliated with a biting upper cut. The man’s head shot back.
Drex seized the opportunity to slam the man against the splintery wall and pin him there with a hard forearm to his neck. Shadows hid most of the man’s face. Dirt and hair hid the rest as Drex grabbed the man’s wrist and ripped the knife from it. He held the blade right to the man’s gut.
“What the hell do you want?” he asked again.
“Shut yer bleedin’ arse,” the man bellowed.
The voice sounded familiar, the voice of a man who had reason to hate him.
Talbot.
His attacker lunged again. Before Drex could move, the sailor jabbed Drex’s chin with a fierce right-handed punch. As he tried to follow with a left to the stomach, Drex blocked the blow, then gouged Talbot in the nose. Blood and curses flowed.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Talbot glared at him in acrimony. “I’ve come to kill ye. Hired right proper to do a deed I would’ve anyway.”
A sudden grunt ripped through the night, precipitating the man’s lunge.
Fingers bared in a menacing arch, the assailant reached for Drex’s throat. He dodged the attack with fast feet, but did not see Talbot’s kick until it connected with his abdomen.
The air left Drex’s lungs in a painful whoosh. He clutched his belly with one hand and gripped the knife with the other.
Supporting his injured nose with one bloody hand, Talbot staggered toward Drex, preparing to attack again. At the last moment, Drex raised the knife, thrusting the sharp silver blade into the cad’s belly.
Talbot’s expression showed shock below his thatch of red hair. He lurched away, clutching his stomach, glaring at Drex with accusing eyes. Then he crumbled to the ground.
* * *
-207-
Shelley Bradley
With Talbot’s corpse slung over his shoulder, Drex boarded The Dragon’s Lair, which had been brought to London and disguised to resemble a merchant ship called Lady Christina.
Hancock greeted him first with a gasp. “Blimey, Cap’n. Who ye got there.”
Drex lowered the body to the deck. Hancock lifted his lantern over the corpse.
“Talbot?” Hancock looked to him in confusion. “We left him in Grand Bahama.”
Drex nodded. “He came here and attacked me in an alley. He told me someone hired him to kill me.”
Hancock’s eyes grew rounder. “Who?”
With a shrug, Drex answered, “I have a guess or two, but nothing solid.”
“What will you do with him?”
Drex paused, considering. “I have an idea.”
“Your ideas always frighten me,” Greg called from the gangplank.
“You’re late,” Drex pointed out.
“Fashionably.” Greg merely grinned. “What is your idea?”
Drex rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “Perhaps my death would be more convincing with a body. And since Talbot…volunteered to provide one when he attacked me, I thought he would do.”
“Manchester isn’t a thick one,” reminded Hancock. “If ye give him Talbot, wouldn’t he notice the difference?”
Greg looked up again with a frown. “I know he has at least a vague description of you.”
Drex shrugged. “The basics? Or more?”
“At least the basics. Remember, Manchester has been pursuing you with single-minded vengeance these last two years. And your tattoo— everyone knows. Since the old goat has your description, that must be included.”
ТЕЛЕГРАМБот для удобного поиска книг (если не нашлось на сайте)
Поиск книг
Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
Канал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками
Книжный Вестник
ВКОНТАКТЕБольшая библиотека с любыми жанрами и авторами
Большая Библиотека
Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров
Фантастика
Самые популярные книги в формате фб2
Топ фб2 книги