How To Seduce A Pirate (The Hawkins Brothers Series) (10 page)

CHAPTER
14

Holly maintained
a distance from her husband, breath trapped in her throat. A part of her had
expected his outright refusal at her proposal. Another part of her had hoped .
. .

Well, she had
her wish. A real kiss.

The pressure on
her lungs was so great, she finally released a long, measured breath. Her heart
thumped, deafening drumbeats in her ears. The room warmed with unbearable heat,
and she removed her leather apron. Still flushed, she pulled the fasteners from
her knotted hair, allowing the tresses to tumble free.

Quincy watched
her every movement, his eyes dark pools of swirling emotions, and his riveting
stare twisted the already tight muscles in her belly. Raking her bottom lip
with her teeth, she wondered what she should do next, but he offered her no
guidance, remaining silent and unmoving in the chair.

Her gaze flitted
toward his hands, his fingers digging into the armrests, and she felt the same
restless energy, the same nervous want.

She took a bold step
toward him and heard his quickened breath. As her own pulse pounded, she
approached him again and nestled between his splayed thighs.

The man’s hot
breath now bathed her, and she closed her eyes, reveling in the intimacy. She
loved to feel his presence, to just listen to his fevered intake and exhale of
air. She only missed his touch.

Holly remembered
the night she’d held her husband in her arms, after his disturbing dream had departed
and only peaceful rest remained, their hearts beating in unison. She would have
that moment again, she thought with shivering delight. And this time, he would
share the erotic moment with her.

Her eyes
fluttered opened and she met his still fiery stare. Heavens, he was beautiful.
Blood swelled in her veins as she slowly lowered herself into his lap.

His muscular
legs flinched, as if she’d scorched him, and she gasped at the almost electric
spark that snapped between them. Her quivering hand went to his chest, cradled
the muscle above his rampant heart, and she matched the thundering beats.

His hand clamped
hard over hers, and the smoldering look in his eyes now held an air of
uncertainty. Quickly, before he reneged on their agreement, she wrapped her
arms around his neck and took his mouth between her lips with savage hunger.

Sweet heaven!

Holly moaned
like a wanton wench. A kiss from him was every bit as wonderful as she
remembered, but her nerves still thrummed with violent need.

“Touch me,” she
begged in a hoarse whisper, breaking from the kiss for one desperate breath.

He flexed his
muscles in resistance.

“Touch me.
Please.” She skimmed her tongue over his sensuous lips. “Just one touch.”

His guttural
groan vibrated down her throat. It wasn’t long before trembling fingers stroked
her spine and fingernails scraped the back of her head, pressing her deeper
into the kiss.

Yes
, she
cried in her soul, rolling her lips in ravenous want. Her skin burst with
gooseflesh, and as her husband met her fervor thrust for thrust, as their
bodies moistened with sweat and undulated in a harmonious rhythm, she knew one
kiss would never be enough.

An inconsolable pain
suddenly ripped through her. The ache swelled inside her and screamed for
satisfaction, an unimaginable longing for more, and tears filled her eyes. The
briny drops spilled down her cheeks and into her mouth, into his mouth.

“Jesus, Holly.”

His prayer
sounded so sincere, beseeching the strength to resist her. Why couldn’t he
forgive her? Why couldn’t he let go of the past and seize the future? Seize
her?

 He pushed her
away.

 “Are you
satisfied?” he gasped, his chest heaving, his body shuddering.

She grazed his
mussed hair with her fingertips. How she yearned to hear him call her “sweet”
again, to feel him breathe the endearment against her naked flesh as he tasted
her body like a husband should. “I will never be satisfied until I have you
inside me.”

Another groan. A
plaintive, even painful groan as his erection throbbed against her thigh.

“I want you,”
she whispered into his downturned ear. “I will always want you—and no other.”

She nipped his
earlobe with her teeth, smothered his temple with another sultry buss before
she moved off his lap.

A pang of regret
squeezed her breast the moment she separated from him, and an impotent want
filled her. She should not have asked for the kiss without the assurance of
real
fulfillment. One kiss from her husband was not enough. It would never be
enough.

But she had
learned that lesson too late.

“A promise is a
promise,” she said, breathless, meeting his haggard gaze. “Your sister.”

He stared at
her, bemused. “What?”

“Your sister is
my source. She told me about your past as a pirate.”

And with that revelation,
Holly headed for the door, her steps faltering.

~ * ~

His sister?

His bleedin’
sister?

Quincy shut his
eyes. He was stiff, suffering from unslaked lust. And for what? He had
discovered his
sister
was a bloody gossip!

What the hell
had he done? Holly had left her mark on him with her lips, her teeth, her
salacious tongue. She had explored and pillaged and branded him hers, renting
from him every ounce of resistance. He had no fight left in him. His body raged
for satisfaction. And he knew no other woman would gratify him like his wife. He
also realized the next time he confronted her, he would give in to her wiles. He
would give her her blasted wedding night.

Quincy reeled as
he left the chair. He could smell her on him, taste her tears in his mouth.
Tears? Why had she cried? She had begged for his touch. Had he hurt her?

I will never be
satisfied until I have you inside me.

Aye, he had hurt
her. His body hurt, too, demanded release. He had struggled against her for far
too long, allowing his desire for her to grow stronger. He had approached the matter
all wrong. He understood now that time wouldn’t lessen a thing. If he wanted to
untangle himself from his wife’s bewitching grip, he had to surrender to his
lust.

“Shit.”

He hated to
lose.

The charcoal sketch
on the easel suddenly captured his notice. As he neared the dark, whirling
strokes, a remarkable image appeared. He dropped in the stool and stared at the
portrait of Holly. Was this how she saw herself?

His fingers
traced the lines of her face. She had reproduced her aesthetics, her proportions
and symmetries. But the work was more than an anatomical study. There was a
wild beauty about her. There was also an unmistakable melancholy. The shadows
behind her loomed and threatened her. Her eyes looked off the canvas, as if
searching for someone . . .

Quincy pulled
his hand away. Was she looking for him?

His heart
thudded at the notion that she both wanted
and
needed him, and he
stumbled away from the stool as if he’d witnessed a wraith. He found his head
spinning with the thought of giving her everything she asked for, and of taking
everything she offered him.

I can give in
return.

Could she? Could
she give him . . . ?

No, it was a
stupid dream. He would never find peace. Not with Holly.

Quincy stormed
from the studio and headed for his room. He turned up the gaslight and ransacked
the chest at the foot of his bed, searching for the satchel of opium. When he
found it, he tore apart the drawstrings and dumped all the sugar-coated
capsules into his palm.

He crushed the
capsules in his trembling fist. His soul screamed for the drug. His heart
begged him not to take it, to take the offer Holly had made him instead.

But he was
sweating, his heart pounding, and the paste in his hand promised him an immediate
remedy from the demons that would never be exorcised.

Quincy swallowed
all the capsules. It wasn’t long before a heavy, blissful sleep draped over him
and he collapsed on the bed, blacking out . . .

He opened his
eyes as morning light entered the room and spread across the bed. The white
light formed a fine line over a woman’s slumbering profile. It caressed her
throat and travelled down her chest and across the peaks of her naked breasts.

She stirred
under the warm light, turned her head away from it. Her lashes fluttered, her
dreamy green eyes appeared—and she smiled.

His chest ached
under the spell of her brilliant smile, more brilliant than the white light. A
hand reached for him and stroked his temple, his cheek, and he sighed at the
soothing touch. But when a finger traced the contours of his mouth, a simmering
heat stirred in his belly.

“Good morning,”
she whispered.

He was strapped
for breath, for words. She rolled over him, her red hair spilling around him,
sheltering him. Her smile never weakened. She brushed his chin with her thumb
before her mouth covered his in a sensual kiss.

When he opened
his eyes again, her beautiful smile remained. Beams of light pierced her hair
and flashed across her brow and nose. He wrapped his arms around her back,
holding her tight.

“Don’t wake up,”
she said. “Don’t ever wake up.”

Quincy leaned
over the side of the bed and retched into the chamber pot. He gasped for air, his
lungs cramped and starved. His body spasmed, contorted with pain. He pulled in
breath after torturous breath. The room rocked back and forth, and he retched
again. Finally, he groaned, and rolled back onto the bed, slinging an arm over
his pounding brow.

He had stopped
breathing. Why?

Opium. He had
taken opium, he remembered. A lot of opium. If he had taken a capsule more, he’d
be dead.

Don’t ever wake
up.

He had missed
his chance to be at peace. He would have stayed in that moment, in that light.

Forever.

With her.

“Quincy!”

A voice
hollered. A door burst open. Hands grabbed his shirt collar, shaking him.

“Wake up!”

Quincy choked, “I’m
awake.”

The hands
loosened, then released him. He rolled to the side of the bed and sat up,
rubbing his burning eyes, then gasped and sputtered when water knocked him in
the face. Hard.

“Get up!” screamed
the voice. “I need you.”

“I said I was
awake!” he roared and opened his groggy eyes. His heart almost stopped again
when he found Holly standing a few feet away from him in her night rail, the
whites of her eyes filled with tiny red veins, a pitcher in her hands—her
bloody hands.

He went numb.

“Holly.” He bounded
to his feet, reeled, then steadied. He rent the pitcher from her trembling grip,
setting it aside, then grabbed her blood-soaked fingers, searching for the
injury. “Where are you hurt?” he demanded. “Tell me.”

“It isn’t me,”
she cried. “It’s Emma. She’s dying.”

“What?” he
rasped, his mind twisting and turning in disorientation.

“Hurry!” she
shouted, then bolted from the room.

He staggered
after her.

CHAPTER
15

Quincy trailed
his wife by a few meters. When she reached her sister’s bedroom door and
released a wretched sob, a knowing dread entered his belly.

He quickly
followed her inside the chamber—and his heart seized. Air swirled in his lungs
with nowhere to escape.

Emma was on the
bed, pale, shivering and moaning, holding her midriff in obvious pain, but the
pool of blood around her was enormous; it filled the bed.

Quincy was
unprepared for the vomit in his belly. It climbed up his windpipe, making him
choke, and he swallowed the bile before stumbling closer to the bed.

Holly rushed to
her sibling’s side and grasped the girl’s hand. “Do something,” she pleaded
with him. “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

His mind filled
with gruesome memories of the night his own sister had suffered through
childbirth, and a pressure came over his chest, squeezing his lungs, until he
finally released the breath he was holding.

“Summon a
doctor,” he ordered.

“She’ll bleed to
death by the time he arrives,” cried Holly. “You’re a ship’s surgeon. Can’t you
stop the hemorrhage?”

Aye, he was a
ship’s surgeon, and he could sew a gash or even amputate a leg, but stop a
woman from hemorrhaging? He just didn’t know how to do that.

“Quincy!”

Her holler
jostled him. He rubbed his burning eyes and shook his head, still wet with
water, before he approached the bed and leaned forward, palpating Emma’s belly.

The girl groaned
when he touched her lower abdomen. He frowned.

“What is it?”
asked Holly. “Is she having her menses? No, of course not. There’s too much
blood.”

“Aye,” he
whispered, thoughtful. “Too much blood.” There was only one other cause for her
bleeding, he reasoned. Softly he stroked the girl’s temple. “Emma, can you hear
me?”

Teeth
chattering, Emma nodded.

“What did you
take, Emma?” he probed, his voice calm.

“Take what?”
demanded his wife, her features contorted in anguish. “What’s happening to her,
Quincy? Tell me!”

He met her
wide-eyed gaze. “She’s having an abortion.”

Holly’s jaw
dropped. “That’s . . . impossible. She’s never been with a man. She doesn’t
know anything about procreation. You’re wrong.”

“I don’t think
I’m wrong, Holly.”

“You’re wrong,”
she insisted.

She wasn’t
prepared to accept the truth, but she was right about one thing: her sister
would bleed to death if he didn’t do something.

Quincy shut off
his emotions like the turn of a switch. He had learned how to do that long ago
when in the heat of battle, displacing his fears and doubts, warring with skill
and instinct alone.

“I need hot
water,” he instructed. “Clean towels. And shepherd’s purse.”

Gathering her
flustered features, Holly bobbed her head. “There’s some in the culinary
garden.”

“Good. And fetch
my medical books. They’re in my room, along with my surgical bag.”

Holly wiped her
tear-stained face with the back of her hand, smearing a bit of blood across her
cheek, before hurrying toward the door.

Quincy overheard
her issuing orders to the servants who’d gathered in the passageway, likely
having caught the commotion.

Alone in the
room with Emma, he repeated softly, “What did you take, Emma?”

“P-pennyroyal.”

He chilled. “Oh,
Emma, how much did you take?”

The herb had been
used for centuries as an abortifacient, but if too much was ingested, or if the
essential oil was downed, the herb became toxic, even poisonous.

“I-I don’t
know,” she stuttered.

Quincy cursed
under his breath. If the blood loss didn’t end her life, the pennyroyal might.

He ran his
fingers through his mussed hair and shut his still fevered eyes, taking a
fortifying breath. He couldn’t let her die like his sister had almost died,
like his mother had died. He had to improvise, and he rummaged through his
muddled memories, searching for a solution.

Soon Holly
returned with her maid. The two women set everything on the writing desk.

Quincy pushed
aside his remaining reservation and approached the table. He opened his anatomy
text to the female form and laid out the page on reproductive organs. He then
dipped his hands in the bowl of hot water and dried them in a clean towel.

He had also studied
pagan herbal medicine and had learned hot water, for whatever reason, increased
a patient’s chance of survival. He would use every bit of knowledge he possessed,
superstitious and all, to try and save the girl.

“Open my
surgical bag,” he instructed Holly.

Her fingers
trembling, she unstrapped the leather buckles.

Quincy sifted
through the instruments and retrieved the clamp forceps. He placed the
tweezers-like implement into the water, as well, before he stripped a few
leaves from the shepherd’s purse.

“Here.” He
handed Holly the herb. “Have her swallow these.”

Holly rushed to
her sister’s bedside and coaxed her to open her mouth. “There now, Emma. Swallow.
That’s a good dear.”

As Holly fed her
sister the leaves, Quincy stripped the rest of the shepherd’s purse, an idea
having formed in his mind, and balled the herb into a cork-size bundle, tying
it together with a piece of the stem. He retrieved the clamp forceps from the
bowl of water and gripped the herbal cluster between the pinchers.

Holly wondered,
“What will that do?”

“Stop the
bleeding, I hope.”

“But how?”

“The herb constricts
the veins. I’ve used it to stop bleeding wounds in the past.”

If a skin injury
wouldn’t clot, the shepherd’s purse, laid over the wound, stemmed the blood
flow, and while Emma didn’t have a laceration, he prayed the herb would still
work and restrict the bleeding.

He briefly
studied the page on a woman’s uterus, heaved a giant breath, then walked toward
the bed. “I need to insert the herb.”

Holly’s cheeks,
moist from tears, turned bright red, but she quickly nodded and crawled onto
the blood-stained bed, wrapping her arms around her sister’s quivering shoulders.

The old maid
stepped forward. “I’ve delivered a babe or two in my time,” she quipped. “I’ll
hold the girl’s legs.”

“Thank you,” he
said, relieved for the help.

Holly averted
her eyes and pressed her lips to her sister’s brow, murmuring soothing words.
The old maid removed a blood-soaked towel from under Emma’s night rail, then positioned
the girl’s legs as if preparing her for a birthing.

Emma sobbed in
pain or fright or mortification, Quincy wasn’t sure, and he swiftly set to
work, slipping the herbal concoction inside her.

The girl cried
out and clamped her muscles, stymieing his progress. He could feel the sweat
across his brow. His own fingers trembled as he forced the shepherd’s purse
deeper toward her womb. Reaching the clamp forceps’s limit, he released the
herb and withdrew the instrument. 

Quickly the old
maid covered Emma with a blanket. “There now,” she cooed. “It’s all over.”

But it wasn’t
over, he thought darkly, wiping his brow with his forearm. Would the herb
control the hemorrhage? And what about the pennyroyal she’d ingested? Would it
take her life?

He staggered
back, unsteady on his feet, still feeling the sedate and dizzying effects of
the opium. He dropped the bloody instrument into the bowl of water and washed
his hands again. There was nothing more he could do but wait. And pray. Pray
the girl survived. Pray he hadn’t made a mistake—and caused another woman’s
death.