The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(27)

Those lips had kissed her once. She’d yearned for them across the void of time between that moment and this one.

Now she feared them. Feared him.

Grief swamped her, threatening to buckle her knees. Somehow, she’d known he’d be this striking as a grown man. She’d just assumed he lived his forgotten life elsewhere. That he was happy.

Because why else wouldn’t he come for her?

It wasn’t until Moncrieff theatrically cleared his throat that she realized what the Rook’s nod to him had signified.

Moncrieff opened the book to a random page and pretended to read. “Captain, did you literally take this woman for the purposes of being your wife? For profit and desire, for plunder and pleasure, in seasickness and health for as long as you are inclined to have her?”

“I did.” The Rook didn’t look at her. “She is mine.”

“That’s it then. By the powers vested in me by, well, you … I pronounce you pirate captain and wife. Felicitations to you both. You may kiss the bride.”

“You may not kiss me!” Lorelai protested, though she belatedly noted he made no move to do so. “And I am not your bride.” Whirling on Moncrieff, she demanded, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I take him? Because I categorically do not.”

Moncrieff laughed as though she’d said something hilarious. “The entire world has tried to take the captain, woman, what makes you think you can?”

“This is a ship, where my word is law,” the Rook reminded her. “You are not required to say ‘I do,’ only to do as I say.”

“But—but this wedding isn’t legitimate,” she sputtered. “No country on earth would acknowledge it. You simply cannot marry a woman against her will!”

One dark brow climbed toward his hairline. “Are you saying it was your will to wed Sylvester Gooch?”

“Well, of course not, but—”

“Then your argument is null.”

A flash of lightning gilded Moncrieff’s queue with threads of bronze as he nodded sagely. “Women have been marrying against their will for untold centuries. In fact, marriage is usually the worst thing to happen to a woman in one way or another, and yet so many insist on spending their days pursuing a husband like a bloodhound does an escaped convict. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Moncrieff,” the Rook clipped.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Go get drunk. That’s an order.”

“With pleasure.” He gave them both a halfhearted, two-fingered salute and did an about-face.

They all silently awaited the thunder to finish as though it were a loud and impertinent guest.

“And take Countess Southbourne to her quarters,” the Rook amended.

“Lorelai?” Veronica’s voice wavered, as Moncrieff’s body blocked the women’s access to each other.

“I could get her drunk,” he offered.

“Don’t you dare touch me. Oof!” Veronica lunged away from the man with such violence, she unwittingly threw herself on the bed.

“Come without a fuss and I won’t have cause to.”

Rolling to the side of the bed, Veronica placed the post between her and the towering pirate. “I won’t leave you alone, Lorelai. Not with him.”

“We could both stay,” Moncrieff suggested with a lascivious waggle of his brows. “Why should the bride be the only one to bed a pirate tonight? If you should like to participate in what comes next…”

Veronica blanched.

“Best put her in a cabin with a small porthole,” the Rook suggested with bland indifference. “We wouldn’t want her doing anything … irrational. She’s more valuable to me alive.”

In one deft move, Moncrieff had Veronica’s arms anchored to her sides as he picked up the struggling countess as though she were as limp as a sack of grain. “I know just the one,” he said after blowing the peacock feather of her headdress away from his mouth with a distasteful grimace.

“Lorelai!” The helpless terror in Veronica’s voice called her to action, and Lorelai lunged toward her reaching hand. An iron grip on her shoulder held her back.

Turning to the Rook, she clutched his shirt, searching his face for some semblance of humanity. “Please let her go. She’ll keep your identity secret if I ask her to, I know she will. If it’s me you’re after, you don’t need her.”

Her hopes fell as she found him as cold and remote as ever.

“What’s that charming saying about secrets? Two can keep them if one is dead.”

Moncrieff shut the door behind them with an ominous sound; Veronica’s protestations still tugged at Lorelai’s heart.

“You … you didn’t just threaten to … to kill her?” A shrill note climbed in tandem with her panic. “Is she safe with that lunatic?” She took a halting step toward the door.

The hand on her arm tightened just short of painfully. “You have my word … Veronica Weatherstoke will remain unmolested, so long as you comply.”

“God! Why must you be so violent?” The moment the frustrated words left her lips, she regretted them.

She wondered if the bleakness had lurked beneath his sinister fa?ade this entire time, or if she’d conjured it with her words.