Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda Jarrett

her thighs with her open palm, praying that her words sounded more convincing to him than they did to her. “I thought you’d noticed that for yourself.”

      Hamil didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was beyond words, a wolfish predatory look that made her feel like a bleating lamb waiting to be devoured. No, worse than that; she felt as if she were thirteen again.

       “No, Caroline, no!” said her mother furiously, cuffing her across the ear while her mother’s friend, the out-of-work actor who was pretending to be Sir Harry, had waited for the chance to fondle Caro again. “You cannot flinch when the gentleman touches you! The gentleman has something you want—his gold—and in exchange you must give him whatever he desires, and that is yourself. Do you understand?”

       “But Mama—”

       Her mother’s hand had struck her again, harder. “Do you understand, daughter?”

       She had pressed her hand to her jaw, fighting back the shameful tears that would only earn her another blow. “Yes, Mama,” she whispered miserably. “I understand.”

      Abruptly Caro pushed her chair back from the table and swept across the room to stand before the window, her back to Hamil as she struggled to regain her self-control. She wasn’t thirteen, and she didn’t answer to her mother any longer.

      Be calm, she ordered herself fiercely, breathing in the scent of orange blossoms from the garden below. You must not let Hamil see your agitation or know your fear. Be gracious, be genteel. Be Lady Caroline Moncrief, Countess of Byfield, because that is what you are.

      “This is a long way from Edinburgh, isn’t it?” she asked lightly. She would make him speak of himself, not her. What man wouldn’t do that? “Why did you leave?”

      He didn’t answer at first, and when she looked over her shoulder she found him standing not a foot away from her, and she gasped. How had he crept up on her so silently like that?

      “What was in Scotland to make me stay?” he asked with a bitterness that Caro hadn’t expected. “What could I have been there? A fisherman like my father, toiling ev’ry day of my life for less than nothing, a little man livin’ in fear of being taken up one more time by the English press and forced to serve against the French?”

      “You would rather kill and imprison your own countrymen?”

      “Aye.” His expression was cold, without mercy, and it took all her will not to move away from him. Standing, she saw he wore his saber even now, and a dagger with a long, curving blade tucked into his sash. Was that the same knife that had so scarred her Jeremiah? How many others had died by the same blade, even, perhaps her own poor Frederick, God help him?

      “I kill who would kill me first, m’lady,” he said, “and take those prisoners my master the pasha wishes. For ten years I served your King George in his navy. I learned my trade but earned no reward for it.”

      “None? I thought that when a prize was taken, even the lowest boy received a share.”

      “A pitiful handful o’ coins for the men, m’lady, while the officers need wagons to carry away their share of the gold.” He grunted with disgust. “Oh, aye, your king is eager to have a poor Scotsman fight for him, but without influence or a fine English name there was to be no advancin’ through the ranks for such as me. The pasha values a man for what he is. Here I have power, riches, my bonny little wives and my sons, and I am second only to the pasha himself.”

      “Doubtless the pasha is grateful to have you sailing on his behalf instead of against him.” She turned away toward the window to hide her revulsion, thinking of how many lives Hamil had ruined.

      “No question of that, m’lady,” said Hamil proudly, “for I’ve filled his coffers as well as my own.”

      “You’ve earned fame as well as riches, you know.” She leaned from the window to pluck a cluster of white blossoms from the tree below, trying not to think of how misplaced a man’s pride could be. “Didn’t you see how all on board the Colomba knew you by sight alone? Even in London they fear your name.”

      “Fear is respect, m’lady,” he said, watching how the silk slid over her hips as she bent forward at the window. “The only true way to rule other men.”

      “And what of your soul?” she asked as she turned back toward him, twirling the flowers beneath her nose. “Is what you gained by converting to Islam worth damning yourself as a Christian for eternity?”

      Hamil made a guttural sound of disgust deep in his throat. “When the bloody priests can offer me the same as the pasha, then I’ll go back to the church.”

      She sleeked back her hair and tucked the white flower behind her ear. “Then here in Tripoli, Hamil Al-Ameer, it would seem you have all you could ever wish.”

      “Aye, m’lady,” he whispered roughly. “Almost.”

      He reached to touch her, the curling hair on the back of his hand glinting red gold in the light of the setting sun. As in a dream she watched his hand come closer. A pirate’s hand stained forever with death and sorrow, a hand that had brought such suffering to the ones she loved, ready to mark her with the same sins, closer and closer.…

       “You must give the gentleman whatever he desires, Caroline, and that is yourself. Do you understand that much, daughter? Will you ever understand?”

      With a hiss Caro jerked beyond Hamil’s reach, her striped skirts swirling about her.

      “You think that because you have stolen and killed enough to make you rich that you are a gentleman, too, don’t you?” she cried, panicking. “That is why you want me, isn’t it, an English countess to add to your collection of stolen jewels and plate!”

      “What I want, m’lady, is a woman who knows better than to trouble me.” He grabbed her arm and effortlessly twisted it behind her back until she yelped with pain.

      “Let me go, Hamil!” she cried, trying desperately to free herself. She could feel his breath warm on her bare shoulder, and the stiff gold threads on his waistcoat prickling into her arm. “Oh, please, let me go, you’re hurting me!”

      “That’s what I intended, m’lady,” he said, taking pleasure in her pain. “Countess or whore, all women are the same beneath their skirts. Ye would do well to remember it.”

      He shoved her roughly away and she stumbled forward, catching herself on the edge of the table. She turned swiftly to face him, her breathing ragged with pain as she gingerly held her arm. “You’ve no right to do that to me, none at all!”