Read Online A Captain's Order - A Duke's Command (Hot Regency Read) (Scandalous Series Book 2) by Tamara Gill - Free Book Online Page A

yelled out to one of his crewmen who jogged over to them. “Take…ahh.” He gestured toward her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
    “Oh, of course I should have said. I apologize. I’m Lady Eloise Bartholomew.”
    The captain raised his brow and a pained expression crossed his features. “Take Lady Bartholomew to my cabin and clear out the stores room beside my room, put a cot in there for her. And Hamish, make sure the crew know she’s off limits.”
    Eloise felt her eyes widen at the captain’s words. Off limits . What did that mean? Had she inadvertently placed herself in more danger here than on the mainland with animals and insects that could kill you within hours? “Thank you,” she said as she followed the other man. The captain walked off without another word and busied himself on deck, obviously busy with getting the ship ready for sail.
    She wished she were returning home on better circumstances, but she was not. Only after a few weeks of arriving here, she was about to embark on another six month journey across the seas.
    She groaned. How would she ever bear it…
     
     

 
    Two
     
    Six months later off the coast of England, 1811
     
    The sea ebbed and flowed around her; great waves rolled and brought her ever closer to home. Yet never had Eloise felt more homeless.
    England.
    So different from the dry, barren, and barely civilized colony of New South Wales. Six months it had taken them to travel there, on a brother's whim to visit new climes and enjoy his newly acquired inheritance. An inheritance now solely hers because of his sudden death to a fever they blamed on a mosquito.
    Eloise shook her head at the knowledge such an insignificant bug could kill a man in his prime. A much-loved brother left on foreign shores many miles from where he, the earl, should have been laid to rest at Belmont House, Surrey.
    They docked not an hour later in the murky brown water of the Thames. The filthy stench from the overpopulated waterway made her yearn for the crystal streams that surrounded Sydney Town.
    “Right this way, m'lady, if you please.” No doubt, years of wind and sea had hardened the gravelly voice of the man stepping around her.
    Eloise followed the hunched gentleman off the boat and walked toward a highly polished, enclosed carriage. Dark and foreboding, it reeked of her future.
    That of a lady. With a title she no longer deserved . . . .
    Because the daughter of an earl did not yearn for the touch of a hardened sea captain. Nor desire, nor crave, his roughened, stubble-strewn jaw marring the skin of her most intimate places.
    And yet she did. Desperately.
    Before she was three feet from the vehicle, the door opened with a snap, and a childhood friend, now woman, alighted—ribbons and frills flying about her like a kite in strong winds—pulling Eloise from her troubled thoughts.
    She laughed. “Emma.” She hugged her dearest friend, the overpowering smell of rosewater making her eyes water. “I have missed you.”
    “You are home. Oh, dearest, England has been such a bore without you. How have you been? You must tell me of your voyage and all you know of this wild land you have visited. I long to travel and would visit such a place if my Bertie would allow. But”—Emma rubbed the distinctive lump under her skirt—”because of my current condition I am not allowed.”
    Eloise smiled, biting back the nip of jealousy over her friend's happy news. “Congratulations. I'm happy for you and Lord Rine. And as soon as I'm home and settled, I promise to tell you all.”
    Well, perhaps not all. How could she explain the Lady Eloise Bartholomew had fallen in love? Lain with a man out of wedlock and enjoyed every decadent, sinful moment of it.
    Deep in her belly, a thread of desire thrummed at the thought of his hands. His lips, grazing her skin, kissing her breasts, her—
    “Are you well, Eloise? You look flushed.” Emma frowned. “Oh dear, I do hope you are not falling ill, my