His to Hold (Regency Scoundrels Book 1)
Read His to Hold (Regency Scoundrels Book 1) Online
Authors: Marly Mathews
His to Hold
Regency Scoundrels, Book One
By Marly Mathews
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2007, 2015 by Marly Mathews
Cover design by Melody Simmons from Ebookindiecovers.com
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
His to Hold
is the first story in my
Regency Scoundrels Series
. It has been previously published, but it has been extensively edited and lengthened for this publication.
This story is for all of my readers who love rogues with hearts of gold.
The hero is a pirate, but the pirates that were around in the Regency Era were much different from those that existed during the golden age of piracy when the likes of Anne Bonny, Henry Morgan, Calico Jack Rackham, and their adventure seeking mates sailed the High Seas. Join me for this romantic romp on the High Seas where swashbuckling rogues reigned supreme.
Contents
Maryland, 1818
Miss Elizabeth Woodward was an heiress. She had wealth beyond measure. Brought up from the age of ten by her grandfather, widowed aunt, and governesses in England, she had never wanted for anything.
Because of her upbringing, she had the manners of an English Debutante. While in England, she had spent her time living in a variety of locations, including London, Bath, Brighton, and at her beloved country estate in the Cotswolds.
And now, after a great time away, she was coming home to the land of her birth. It had been over ten years since she’d set foot on American soil, and now that she was back home, she didn’t know if she’d made the right decision.
Her heart already yearned for England, where she had been safe—and most importantly, where she had been loved.
Despite being born here, this country was almost foreign to her, and many of her friends that she’d had as a child had moved away.
The docks were alive with the hustle and bustle of officers, sailors, merchants and other classes of ladies and gentlemen. Shouts of the sailors calling to each other raised above the screeches the seagulls made, as they swooped around the tall ships and dove into the water for food, or onto the docks for scraps left by the men and women.
Various smells, most of them unpleasant, carried on the wind to her, and she had to reach inside of her reticule for the handkerchief that had been scented with her fragrance for just such an occasion. She pressed the perfumed handkerchief to her nose, and inhaled deeply.
The reassuring whistles and squeaks of the dolphins as they jumped out of the water made her smile. She always kept a careful watch when they were at sea, hoping that the dolphins would stay with their ship for most of the journey.
The coarse voice of a doxy swearing a blue streak at one of her men, momentarily distracted Elizabeth from her set course toward a pair of waiting carriages that had been sent for her.
Where the hell was her companion? She had lost her in the crowds.
The warm Maryland weather was making her sweat. She was thankful for her parasol to shield her from the hot afternoon sun. This was something she hadn’t missed about Maryland.
She whirled about when someone placed a hand on her shoulder. Perturbed at the man’s impudence, she stepped back away from him and sniffed disdainfully at the air. He smelled of a masculine cologne. The scent of sandalwood and something else…was it lemons? Clung to him like a second skin.
The man was tall, impossibly so. She perused him with unabashed interest. He seemed familiar to her, and yet she could not quite place him. His hair was kissed by the sun, and wildly untamed. It was far too long for her sensible tastes, and she almost wished that he would scoot along to the barber.
“Do I know you, sir?” she asked. Her eyes swept the crowd, and she finally located her missing companion. She lingered not two feet away from her. For the first time since she had set sail from London, England, she actually felt glad to have Sarah Browning with her.
Her Aunt Augusta would have accompanied her, but she had been taken ill at the last possible moment, and so coming with her on the sea voyage had been out of the question. Which was just as well, as far as she was concerned, as she was no longer as fond of her aunt as she had once been.
Even now, she wondered why she’d taken on such a foolish quest. She should have stayed in England where she was safe, and continued along with her predictable existence, and maybe, just maybe, she should have married her cousin.
Her eyes gobbled up the rakish scoundrel in front of her. She had led a somewhat sheltered life back in England, and had been closely chaperoned by her aunt, her many friends, her older cousin, Raleigh, and at one point in time, two pesky governesses.
His black trousers clung to his long legs, and his loose white shirt revealed just the barest glimmer of his blond chest hair. His hand touched her shoulder, and rested there. She should have shook him off, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel at all threatened by him, and that alone seemed completely out of character for her.
What the bloody hell was the matter with her?
He stared at her with an intense gaze that made her skin tingle. His eyes were an extraordinary blue, and sparkled like gemstones. They were filled with kindness, and something else…
The way he looked at her, she felt alone. As if they were the only two people on the planet, even when she was surrounded by the activity of the docks. His hand had slipped down her arm, as she had turned around, and now rested ever so lightly on the back of her left hand. Their skin to skin contact made her tingle. Why wasn’t she wearing gloves? What was the matter with her?
Refusing to give him the satisfaction of staring down at her where his hand lay, she fixed her eyes on his azure blue ones. They were most disturbing, and sent a thrill up and down her spine. They captivated her, try as she might she could not look away.
She did know him, but from where?
“Are you one of my father’s men?” she asked. Her mind continued to race. She needed to place him and quickly. He had a most disturbing effect on her, one that she didn’t like in the slightest. Her heart skipped in her chest, and her palms grew sweaty.
“I will never be one of your father’s men. I would die first. For what he has done to me and mine, I would see him burn in the eternal fires of hell,” he answered curtly. At the mention of her father’s name, his warm blue eyes had flickered with icy cold.
Curse her luck! Here stood another man that the great Geoffrey Woodward had angered. She wasn’t surprised. Her father was far from an easy man to deal with, and the fact that this man didn’t like her father, sent a chill up and down her spine.
Her father and he probably clashed like titans, as he didn’t seem to be of the type that Geoffrey liked to surround himself with. His closest friends were reprobates of the highest order.
“Ah, well, I’m sorry for that. Truly,” she murmured, dropping her voice to a low contralto. “Since we’ve exchanged our niceties, I’ll just take my leave.” Shrugging his hand off her shoulder, she started to walk away from him when he grabbed her hand, pulling her back.
“I think not!” he murmured huskily, his eyes glittering with mirth. His full mouth slanted into a smile that made her stomach plunge.
Was he actually contradicting her? No one ever went against her wishes. It just was not done! Did he not fully realize to whom he spoke?
“Perhaps, sir, you did not hear me the first time.”
“There has never been anything wrong with my hearing. My hearing is as keen as a lad in grammar school.”
While they talked, it was if the rest of the world melted away, leaving only the two of them. She heard herself speaking, and knew she sounded remarkably like her father, and yet, she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“Then maybe you’re just a daft oaf of a man.” Her snappy retort made his eyes flicker with something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Her suggestion seemed to annoy him for a muscle began to twitch in his clean-shaven cheek. He pursed his lips in a distasteful line. Raising her head to meet his gaze, she riveted her eyes on his.
Delighting in her clever barb, she once again tried to wrench her wrist free from his ironclad grasp. But it was to no avail. He was stronger than any man she had ever commanded. Stronger even than her dear Papa.
She clutched her reticule in her right hand, which blessed be was still free. An uneasy feeling began to grow in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, everything and everyone around them had become eerily still.
Biting her lip in frustration, she winced when she tasted blood. This man unnerved her to her very core. Exhaustion pulled at her, making her irritable, not to mention cranky. All she wanted was to return to her plantation house. She was ill-tempered, and extremely fatigued. She didn’t have time for a scoundrel like him!
“You, Miss Woodward, are accompanying me.” He gave her a wicked grin, flashing his perfectly straight white teeth at her. This man was gently bred. He had the refined manners of a gentlemen, and his gentle accent wasn’t one that hailed from the hoi polloi.
She could tell he was trying to disguise his voice by lowering it and making it sound rougher than it should. She was at a loss for words for exactly two seconds.
“I haven’t heard anyone call me Miss Woodward in a long time. In England, I am known as Miss Elizabeth Woodward, and they tend to favour calling me Miss Elizabeth over there. My grandfather didn’t care for them calling me Miss Woodward, he insisted they all call me Miss Elizabeth. As for going with you, sir, to hell, I am!”
Straightening to her regal height of five foot four inches, she watched as that damnable muscle twitched in his cheek again. Narrowing her eyes, she resisted the uncommon urge to laugh in his face.
“You, miss, are not making this easy for me.”
“You have me at a loss, sir. What am I not making easy for you?”
“Kidnapping you.” His startling revelation threw her badly, and she snorted indelicately. She could hear her governess Miss Grady’s voice, resonating in her head again.
‘Someday, Miss Elizabeth, you will learn that you cannot always have everything your way. Miss Grady followed this statement by her calling her an impertinent miss.’
Well, Miss Grady’s words were certainly ringing true now. This man standing in front of her would not be easy to outwit. He looked as if he was quite the clever fellow, much cleverer than any of the men she’d toyed with in England.
Why did her father have to anger such an astute and daring man? Couldn’t he have bothered to madden a dolt that didn’t know his arse from a hole in the ground?
And why, why hadn’t she stayed in England? She knew why…she had fled to America because she had gotten tired of running from the many men who wanted her as their bride, not for anything else, but because she was an heiress.
Thanks to the impressive fortune her mother’s father had left her upon his death, two years ago. And made worse by the fact that as her father’s only child, he would leave to her a fortune beyond reckoning that would make her the envy of many men—and women.
The men who pursued her, weren’t in love with her—they didn’t care about her fine mind, or her fine body, or anything like that. They only cared about her money—her dirty filthy money. Something so many coveted, and the commodity upon which her life was measured. And then, there was her cousin Raleigh Drake. She sighed heavily just thinking about him.
She coyly batted her eyelashes at her would be kidnapper. “If you let me go, I shall pay you my weight in gold,” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster, considering the circumstance. If this one wanted a ransom from her father, he could just as easily get it from her. She would pay him whatever he desired.
Her eyes rested on Sarah. Her companion was making a discreet getaway. Thank heavens. She knew that Sarah would come through for her by fetching help.
He tilted his head to one side, and raked her with his searing gaze. “I wouldn’t think that to be too much gold.” His quip stung, and fury began to boil through her. She searched for Sarah, but could not find her anywhere. What was taking her so long to summon help?
“If you seek to appeal to my father’s shrinking heart by way of kidnapping me, I warn you…he has no heart when it comes to his only child.” It was partially true. Her father didn’t really care about her that was why she spent so much of her time in England. Keeping an ocean between them was usually just how she liked it. No matter how indifferent he was to her at times, he had never forced any man upon her, and told her once that marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She knew he would deal with her aunt, if she wanted him to—and her aunt feared him more than anyone else in the world. “You would be better off appealing to my Aunt Augusta and her son, The Earl of Beaconsfield, if you seek to ransom me.”
“If you are looking for the lovely Miss Browning, you will not find her. I’d warrant that she’s with my first mate, Ethan. They are no doubt about to have a lovely time trying to break the bed in the Rembrandt Inn.”
She cast her eyes back at him in a bewildered gaze. His throaty chuckle that followed her dumbfounded expression only served to rile her further.
“Did you not know, Miss High and Mighty?” Shaking her head, she wished desperately that he would explain his little game to her.
“Tell me what you are hedging around, sir.”
“I, miss, do not hedge. I get to my point like a crack of thunder.” His eyes dropped to her heaving chest, and then flickered back toward her stern gaze. “Your precious Sarah does not belong to you. Actually, she belongs to my first mate. He has quite the way with the ladies, despite his advanced years. He’s a real charmer, and I suppose he delivers, by the satisfied looks the ladies have after he’s done with them. If you missed his name the first time, I’ll repeat it. It is Ethan,” he drawled his first mate’s name out, as if he thought that she were too dim-witted to understand what he was talking about.
She bristled with indignation at his rude insinuation. “You should tread lightly, sirrah! You have not the right to throw careless insults in my face!”
“That, my fair lady, was not a careless insult.” He grinned cheekily again, and watched her face avidly, as if he waited for her to entertain him, with a right and proper tantrum.