Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) (9 page)

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“Don’t argue with me, just drink it.” Captain Jack Rawlings,
Donovan’s friend and ally from their pirating days, set the whiskey bottle on
the table and shoved the glass in his hand. They were cloistered in Jack’s
quarters, in the outer suite where the captain held card games to entertain his
officers during the long passages between England and the Caribbean.

“She doesn’t know me.” Donovan sat forward on the chair,
elbows on his splayed knees, cradling the drink between his palms. “It’s been a
week, Jack.”

“Her memory is affected.” The blond captain sat across from
him, a bright grin breaking the bronzed terrain of his face. “Shouldn’t that be
a good thing?”

 Donovan studied the carpet between his splayed knees. He
set his glass on the table untouched. “She remembers her captivity—rather—she
vaguely recalls being held captive by men intent on harming her, but she
doesn’t remember me--at all.”

 “A little confusion is normal after a knock on the head,
even I know that.”

This was more than a little confusion. Elizabeth believed
she was sixteen years old, not eighteen. She couldn’t remember him because in
her mind she’d never met him before she’d awakened in his bed last week. She
slept most of the time since then. Each time she awakened she asked him who he
was. When he told her, she responded with shock and outraged denials. He tried
not to let it bother him too much, as she forgot everything he told her in a
short time.

Jack picked up the untouched drink and shoved it at him.
“Here, one drink won’t muddle your reasoning.”

Donovan swirled the amber liquid in his hand. As Jack
continued to eye him, he downed the glass in one gulp and exhaled sharply as
the fiery libation spread warmth through his insides.

 Nodding with satisfaction, Jack poured himself another
portion, took a sip and murmured, “I’d give my soul to be in your place, to
have Amelia here with me. And if she were a mite confused I’d count myself
fortunate and start wooing her all over again.”

 Jack’s fiancée, a merchant’s daughter from Boston, had
accompanied her father to the east to purchase silks years ago. Their ship was
taken by Barbary pirates. Her father escaped and sent word to Jack that Amelia
had been sold to an Arab prince. He authorized Jack to empty his bank account
for a ransom. Jack arrived with the funds for her release, only to learn that
his beloved had been executed one week earlier for defying her captor.

Half mad with grief, Jack turned to piracy. They crossed
swords on the Indian Ocean as rival corsairs. Donovan shot Jack in the leg
during their skirmish. Jack kept fighting with the spirit of a Viking
berserker, propping himself up on a barrel and artfully deflecting his
opponent’s blade, all the while assaulting Donovan with that wide, brilliant
grin--until he passed out from loss of blood. Donovan removed the bullet and
weaned the sailor from his opium addiction. They formed an alliance, becoming
The Raven and Black Jack, and made their fortune terrorizing ships in the East
Indies.

 Donovan turned his empty glass about in his hands. He
wished he could be like Jack and toss back a bottle now and then to forget.
There were risks for those seeking forgetfulness at the bottom of a bottle. His
body would forever bear the marks of such carelessness. He could have stayed
home and studied medicine at Harvard College in America. But no, as a lad of
seventeen he wanted to be free of his overprotective mother and her smothering,
so he felt it necessary to put a sea between them. If he hadn’t been
perpetually drunk during his time in Paris, he might have noticed his uncle’s
seditious bent and distanced himself from the man before the King’s Guard came
to his uncle’s chateau to arrest them both.

What a sorry pair they made, Jack and himself. They often
debated who had saved whom from madness in the East. The truth was they had
somehow managed to save each other.

Chapter
Eight

That strange man was sitting in the chair beside her bed
again. He was reading, unaware Elizabeth was awake and studying him. Shoulder
length black hair was secured in a neat queue. He wore a clean linen shirt with
the sleeves rolled up at the elbows. A neatly tied stock hung from his neck,
secured by a ruby pin. A black silk vest shot with gold and green threads
remained unbuttoned. Black breeches hugged muscular thighs, disappearing
beneath gleaming Top boots. His hands were neatly manicured. A signet ring
circled one finger but she could not make out the crest in the dim light. It
was obvious the man was a gentleman, not a sailor.

She tried to remember who he was and why she was here with
him. There was the vague impression that he had rescued her, yet how she came
to be in that dark hold in the first place and needed his rescuing was a
mystery to her. “Excuse me, Sir?”

Pale blue eyes gazed up from the book. Hair as dark and
shiny as a raven’s wing swirled in elegant swathes about a face that had been
lightly kissed by the sun. What mischievous pooka had enchanted this handsome
man to make him take an interest in her affairs?

“Do you need to use the privy closet?” He set the book aside
and started to rise.

“No!” Elizabeth flushed scarlet, all the romance of the
previous moment effectively doused as she recalled he’d been carrying her to
that small closet frequently during her illness. “I-I just needed to ask you a
question, sir, that’s all.”

 He sat down, hunching forward slightly, elbows resting upon
splayed knees, his large hands laced together before him. “Go ahead.” He sighed
with an air of resignation.

“You’ve been very kind to look after me, sir. I’m afraid I
don’t recall your name.”

“Dr. Donovan O’Rourke Beaumont, Count Rochembeau, at your
service, my lady.”

“You’re a doctor and a nobleman? How can that be?”

“My father was the younger son of a French Count. Being the
younger son and not the heir, he went off to make his fortunes in the American
colonies. He bought a plantation in the Carolinas and married the feisty Irish
lass who stole his heart. My mother christened me with both her parent’s
surnames so I might never forget I’m half Irish.” He spoke in a languid
colonial drawl with just the hint of an Irish burr in it, a mixture she found
alluring.

Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile. He smiled back, and her
insides did a peculiar little twist to be the recipient of such bounty.

“I went to France to study medicine, and lived with my
uncle, the former count. My uncle died without heirs, bestowing upon me the
ancient title of Count Rochembeau. So, I’m American by birth, a count by
default, and a physician by choice.”

She nodded at his explanation. “I owe you a great debt for
rescuing me, my lord. My grandmother will be very worried. She’s quite old and
frail. We must send word to her.”

Her caretaker reached forward, took her hand and cradled it
between his own. “Your grandmother passed on some weeks ago.”

“No!” She protested as her throat closed around a hard stone
that suddenly lodged there. She squeezed her eyes shut to contain the moisture
gathering before it spilled out onto her cheeks. The large hand encompassing
her own tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to convey his
compassion, enough to say he understood her grief. She opened her eyes.
Releasing a strangled sob, she swiped at the tears escaping down her cheeks
with the lace sleeve of her gown. “Sheila loved me, more than my own mother.”

“Yes.” Something flickered in her caretaker’s eyes. “Sheila
loved you very much. That’s why she made me promise to take care of you after
she died.”

“Well, I do have a brother, sir. Michael Fletcher. Have you
attempted to contact him?”

“Ah, Michael’s a good lad.” He patted the hand he had firm
possession of, and took to stroking her captured limb in a manner that seemed
far too intimate. “He’s in London, preparing to enter St. Paul’s Academy in the
spring.”

“And just w-who is p-paying f-for that?” She huffed, enraged
by his strange claim and frustrated by her inability to speak clearly.

“Your grandfather. I was planning to, but the earl insisted
upon it in the end.”

Elizabeth sat bolt upright in the bed and jerked her hand
from his grasp. “Lord Greystowe? The Earl wouldn’t care if Michael and I were
d-drowned in the Th-thames as infants! H-he disowned my m-mother—h-h-he-he-“

“Easy, lass!” He rose to stand over her. “You’re getting
upset and there’s no need. Michael is fine, and I’m going to take good care of
you, just as I promised Old Sheila.”

“I want to go home.” She tossed back the covers and swung
her legs over the bed.

Strong hands circled her shoulders, preventing her from
rising. “You’re not leaving this bed. You suffered a severe blow to the head
that nearly killed you. That’s why you can’t remember the past two years of
your life.”

 Two years? What a queer world she’d awakened to; Sheila was
dead and Michael was at a school for rich boys? And she was in the keeping of a
stranger. “Where are you taking me?”

“To the West Indies.”

 “But . . . I don’t know anyone in the Indies!” She
whispered above the load roar in her ears. The room seemed hot and confining,
like a prison cell.

“That’s where I live, darlin’, on a beautiful island.” He
sat down on the bed, facing her, his arm resting along her thigh. She could
feel the weight of his hand on her leg, the heat of him even with the blanket
between them. “We can go riding in mornings and picnic on the beach in the
afternoons. You can collect sea shells and swim in the ocean.”

“I don’t know how to swim.” She managed in a voice that
sounded high and tight to her ears. Fisting the blanket in her hands, she gazed
about the room for some portal, some magical means of escape that would take
her back to Sheila, Michael, and all that was familiar to her.

“It’s all right. I’ll teach you.” The count caressed her
cheek with a light forefinger.

Elizabeth grew still. His caress, his nearness, his manner
were too familiar. “Are you—are you my legal guardian, s-sir?”

He studied her for a torturous moment, as if debating the
answer in his mind. “I suppose in a manner of speaking, I am.” He confided,
then paused before adding, “I’m your husband.”

She gasped in outrage. “That’s impossible—“

“It’s the truth.” He countered, his intense blue eyes
softening in commiseration. “I would never trifle with you on such an important
matter, my dear.”

Elizabeth stared at the man, unable to think as the
frightening absurdity of it washed over her. Married—it was so permanent. “I’m
too young to be married, I’m only sixteen.”

“You are eighteen, Elizabeth. The year is seventeen
ninety-eight, not ninety-six.”

Elizabeth nibbled her lower lip, her mind working furiously
for a way out of this mess. Married, yet tainted—there was the rub. “You don’t
have to keep me, sir.” She spoke rapidly, desperate to barter her release. “You
can have the marriage annulled. No one would blame you after what happened—I
can take care of myself, I’ve been doing it for most of my life. I’m strong--I
can find work, and-and, you could remarry—someone who isn’t tainted—“

 Two long, lean fingers pressed against her lips to stop her
impulsive rambling. She shivered, recognizing the steely resolve in those bonny
blue eyes.

“There will be no annulment.” The voice that had been velvet
became stone. He removed his hand from her lips. “You are my wife, not a horse
to be traded at the market. And you insult my integrity by suggesting I should
cast you aside for what someone did to you. What happened is not your fault.
You must never believe for a moment that it is. I should be the one begging
your forgiveness. It’s pointless when I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

An awkward silence stretched on after his emotional
outburst. Elizabeth didn’t understand why he should feel her abduction
reflected badly upon him.

 Recovering quickly, he rose from the bed and took to
tugging the covers up about her with jerky movements. “Lie back and rest.” He
commanded in a clogged timbre, as if his throat ached and he found it painful
to speak. He turned away from her and stalked to the door.

“Wait, might I ask one question, sir?”

Turning on his heels to face her, an ebony brow sliced
upward at a dangerous angle.

“How long have we been married?”

“Not quite a month.”

“And, how long have I been ill?”

“That’s two questions.” He warned, taking a step nearer the
bed. “You were abducted after the wedding ceremony, while I was detained
elsewhere on business. So, the answer to both questions is the same; we’ve been
married and you’ve been ill for over three weeks.”

Elizabeth blinked. What seemed a sparse few days in her mind
had been nearly a month?

She rose up on an elbow as more questions rose to the
forefront. “But how—“

The count’s eyes narrowed. “I told you to lie down and rest
quietly, and that is precisely what you are going to do.” With that, he left
the room.

Elizabeth experienced a pang at his retreat. She felt safe
when he was near. She felt an inexplicable panic whenever she awakened and
found herself alone in this strange place. Deep down, she knew he would not
hurt her; he’d protect her if need be, with his very life.

Perhaps that was significant; she felt safe with him,
trusted him on a purely instinctual level. He had been kind to her. He was
wickedly handsome. And young--she was fortunate in that respect. She could have
awakened to find herself married to some foul smelling . . .

The count strode into the room with a purposeful mien. He
held out a parchment.

Elizabeth took the sheet from him. It was a certificate of
marriage—dated two years into the future. Dr. D. O. Beaumont, Count Rochembeau
is joined in the bonds of holy matrimony to Elizabeth Grace O’Flaherty, on
September the fifth, Seventeen Hundred and Ninety Eight.