Read Online How To Seduce A Pirate (The Hawkins Brothers Series) by Alexandra Benedict - Free Book Online Page B

carriage,” she said in a quaint, almost innocent manner. “You
really should rest.”
    He gritted his
teeth. She would not take what was left of him, he vowed. His body was his to
give alone. And while he’d no experience resisting a luscious woman, he was
determined to resist this one.
    You can’t avoid
her. She’s your wife.
    She was his wife. And he would put her in her rightful place, make it clear to her there
would be no wedding night between them.
    Ever.
    But how? He
wasn’t a brute. He usually charmed a woman into giving him what he wanted with a
smile, a wink, a few craftily whispered words. He sure as hell couldn’t charm
his own wife, though.
    Bullocks.

CHAPTER
10
     
    As the carriage
jounced through the gas illuminated streets, Holly clasped her hands in her
lap—though she envisioned clasping them around her husband’s throat. Imagine,
returning from a dangerous three month voyage and outright confessing to a new,
worried bride you were off to a den of sin to bed a whore!
    It took every
bit of her self-restraint to maintain an agreeable manner and amiable tone, and
to keep from clobbering her husband with her shoe. The nerve. The
bullheadedness. The rake . And she had defended his honor. What rubbish!
She should have left the matter alone as he’d bidden her. Instead, she’d risked
alienating her new family by confessing her scandalous past and ennobling her
husband.
    “Are you all
right?”
    Holly snapped
her head away from the window and glared at the man. “What?”
    “You’re
huffing,” said Quincy. “Often.”
    Was she? “I’m
fine. Tired, is all.”
    “Hmm.” He
crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his long legs, bumping her
shin. “It must be very tiring indeed, flirting with so many men?”
    She shivered at
his incidental touch. He had noticed the pack of roués, had he? She humphed.
The men were an infernal nuisance, to use her husband’s turn of phrase. She had
once coveted such amorous attention, but since meeting her desirable husband,
no other man had captured her interest.
    Wait! Was Quincy
jealous? She glanced at his furrowed brow and dark frown. A warmth settled in
her belly at the delightful thought, and she decided to turn the frustrating
situation into an advantageous one.
    She smiled. “Yes,
I shall have to acquire a little notebook to keep all their names straight in
my mind.”
    The conversation
ended there, followed by a tense silence. When the carriage rolled up to a flat
faced townhouse with three rows of six paned windows and an elegant lintel
above the front door, alight with sconces, Quincy exited the vehicle and
climbed the front step, pounding on the door, leaving her unattended in the
carriage.
    Well, she’d
ignited his jealousy. She only hoped she hadn’t pushed him too far with the
innuendo of other lovers. She had to keep the fire between them burning.
If ever his disposition toward her changed, turned indifferent, their marriage
would truly be in name only, having withered to ash.
    She tottered
from the vehicle before the driver whipped the horses and headed around the corner
to the stables at the rear of the house.
    The front door
opened.
    Quincy charged
indoors, passing the aghast butler, and headed for the stairs.
    “It’s all right,
Thompson,” she assured the elderly servant as she stepped into the entrance
hall. “Meet your new master, Mr. Hawkins.” As Quincy mounted the stairs, she
called after him, “Would you like me to give you a tour of the house?”
    “No.”
    “You don’t even
know which bedroom is yours, though.”
    “I’ll recognize
my own bleedin’ furniture.”
    He crossed the
landing, disappearing from view, his heavy footfalls marching through the
upstairs passageways.
    Holly sighed. “He’s
tired,” she reassured a frowning Thompson. “He has been at sea for months and
needs rest. He’s really rather charming otherwise.”
    The dubious
butler nodded in silence and collected her shawl. “And Miss