Free How To Seduce A Pirate (The Hawkins Brothers Series) by Alexandra Benedict Page A

room.
    Holly sighed
with a blend of disappointment and hope.
    One day, she
vowed.
    One day she
would have her husband.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER
11
     
    Quincy slammed
the door of his bedchamber and prowled the room. He rent the cravat from his
neck and stripped off his jacket and vest. That woman! That infernal woman! She
would keep the wretched nude? Stare at it whenever it pleased her? Stare at him whenever it pleased her?
    He kicked off his
shoes, sending both into the wall. He’d torch that painting yet, he vowed. He
wouldn’t give her the pleasure of keeping it, of keeping him , like a sideshow
bear trapped in a cage. She would not have any part of him, not even his
likeness.
    Pulling the
shirt up over his head, he dropped it, too, to the floor. Was she staring at it
right now? he wondered, then stopped in his tracks. His every muscle cramped at
the thought of her penetrating eyes caressing the canvas, her elfin fingers
grazing the fabric in sensual want.
    As if he’d felt
her arousing touch, he shuddered.
    Burn it.
    Definitely.
    Quincy crouched
beside the sea chest at the foot of his bed and rummaged through the contents,
searching for the satchel of opium capsules stored somewhere inside. He needed
the drug’s numbing effect, its blissful ability to blot out torments. He damn
well didn’t want to think about his wife wanting him. Or wanting other men.
    He stilled as he
remembered the lechers salivating over her during the engagement ball. And her
“little notebook” of the men’s names? Perhaps she’d already had an affair? He’d
been gone three months and hadn’t a deuced idea what she’d done—unsupervised—in
all that time.
    No, she wouldn’t
take a lover while he was at sea. If she became pregnant, it would be mighty
obvious he wasn’t the father. She would time her affairs with his furloughs,
the wench. And if she was having an affair right now?
    He fisted his
palms. What if she was already pregnant? What if that was the real
reason she was so intent upon their wedding night? To legitimate the babe?
    He didn’t care.
He shouldn’t care.
    At last he found
the satchel and grabbed a few capsules. He dropped his head back and downed the
opium. The capsules became stuck at the back of his throat, but the sugar
coating quickly melted and the drug slipped easily into his belly.
    Quincy wiped his
mouth and sighed, dropping the satchel back inside the chest. Soon, he thought.
Soon the unfeeling darkness would come and he would rest.
    He pushed away
from the chest and peeled off his trousers before he dropped onto the bed and
curled his arm around a pillow.
    The drug’s heady
effect was swift to come. His muscles relaxed. His mind quieted. And then
darkness fell . . .
    The room was
silent. Candles burned beside the bed, revealing a fevered brow and the sallow skin
of  a wraith.
    The duke stood
beside the window, unmoving, holding back a torrent of immeasurable grief. If
the duchess breathed her last breath, that grief would explode. It would be the
rebirth of a monster.
    “How is she?”
    Silence.
    “The duke?”
    “I fear for his
mind. Bring the child.”
    She can’t die,
thought Quincy. She can’t die. Not again.
    “The child is
here.”
    “Open the
window,” his sister whispered. “I don’t want her to sense my death.”
    James carried
the child and kneeled beside the bed.
    “Alice, you have
a baby brother,” said Mirabelle.
    “But I’m still squirt.”
    “Yes, you’re
still squirt. Bring her closer, James.”
    The pirate
captain rested the child nearer her mother, and she wrapped her arms around the
small figure.
    “I want you to take care of your brother, Alice.”
    The girl screwed up her face. “Why, Mama?”
    “Because that’s what big sisters do.”
    “I thought that’s what nurses do?”
    “I’d like you to help nurse. Can you do that for me?”
    The child sighed. “Yes.”
    Mirabelle took in a shaky breath.
    “What’s wrong,