CHAPTER 2
James
Captain James Hawkins stood in the middle of the dressing room in front of the full-length mirror—stark naked. He had changed out of his traveling clothes and was about to pull on his eveningwear, when a pair of seductive eyes trimmed with long, sooty lashes caressed him through the glass.
She could set him afire with just one scorching look. If anyone else had that sort of hold over him, he’d struggle for supremacy. But he was coming not to mind his wife’s captivating influence.
James returned the woman’s heated gaze. “Let down your hair, sweetheart.”
A slow smile spread across her sensuous lips. She stepped into the dressing room from the adjoining bedchamber and approached him in a deliberate manner. He studied her every artful movement through the glass.
Sophia stopped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her warm fingers raking the muscles of his abdomen, and when she pressed her wicked mouth against the curve of his spine, he groaned low in his throat.
“Later,” she purred. “After dinner.”
James closed his eyes and steadied his already quickened breath. If he didn’t regain control of his senses, there would be no dinner, and he could just imagine his audacious sister barging into the room at the most importune moment, demanding to know the reason for their delay.
After recovering a measure of his unbridled lust, James opened his eyes. His wife was watching him with a smirk, ever aware of the power she had over him, and the witch was all but glowing with satisfaction. She took far too much pleasure in tormenting him, he thought, disgruntled.
“The family is informal, sweetheart. I’m sure no one will mind if you let loose your hair.”
He loved her lush locks spilling over her backside, unfettered by combs and pins. Wild. Like her.
James remembered the first time he had met her in the untamed mountains of Jamaica. Cutting through the swirling mist and tangled brush, he had made his way to a ramshackle house in the peaks, searching for an old buccaneer who had once saved his father’s life. But there, deep in paradise, James had also found Sophia, the pirate’s daughter.
She had greeted him with the barrel of a pistol, her suspicious eyes peering at him over the flintlock, her thick tresses, like smooth cocoa, flowing over her shoulders in abundant waves.
“Black Hawk, I presume? My father’s told me all about you.”
At the stirring memory, James shuddered.
“I prefer to wear my hair up for dinner,” she said in a playful drawl, thwarting his desire.
He humphed. “If you’re finished torturing me, woman, it’s time I dressed for dinner.”
She chuckled, a smoky chortle, before she slapped his arse and sashayed a few steps away. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, James.”
“What about?”
He pulled on his breeches as Sophia fetched him his linen shirt. He had no valet, detesting the pompous convention, but he’d grown rather fond of his wife’s help in the manner of dressing—and disrobing.
She handed him the shirt. “I’m pregnant.”
James froze with only one arm through a sleeve. A cold, rushing panic gripped him, and he stared at the woman as if she’d turned into a goat.
“James?”
“How?”
A dark brow quirked. “Really?”
“You are barren, woman,” he growled.
Was she funning with him? She had the same damn smirk in her eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was being sincere. She had always found a perverse titillation in making him miserable.
“I’m not amused, Sophia.”
“Good.” She folded her arms under her generous breasts. “I’m vexed about it, too. You just had to be so virile?”
She was winding him up, the witch. And with the worst possible jest. Sophia knew he didn’t want any urchins. Ever. After the death of his mother, James had reared his siblings while their father had pirated at sea. Those had been the most difficult years of his life. And he was done nursing brats and raising hoydens. He sure as hell wasn’t going to start another family at forty-bleeding-two years of age!
“Enough, Sophia. I’m in a piss poor mood now.”
He yanked on the rest of his clothes, a vest and coat, and tied back his hair in a roughshod manner before stalking out of the dressing room. He sat on the edge of the bed, cramming his feet into his shoes, all the while glancing at Sophia askance.
The woman had yet to confess she was toying him. Her silence stretched. Her gaze remained fixed and unflinching. And James started to feel uneasy.
“You’re barren,” he repeated, making her ploy inconceivable.
Sophia was only twenty-eight years of age, a fertile period for most women, but she and James had met eight years ago, and their heated affair had never produced any offspring. After a torrid year together on the island, their affair had ended in a crushing blow that had soured him for years. And James wasn’t naive. His sensual Sophia had taken other lovers in the time they’d been apart. But she had never had a pregnancy. And she had never used anything to block one because . . . She. Was. Barren.
“James,” she said softly. “Haven’t you noticed I was getting a little ‘plump’ in certain areas?”
He snorted, then murmured under his breath.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“I said, I noticed.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t think it wise to mention you were getting ‘plump.’ Besides, I adore your curves, you know that.”
She smiled, her eyes smoldering. “What about our nights together? Haven’t you noticed I’ve not pushed you away for the last three months?”
James paused, then frowned.
“I haven’t had my menses in three months, James.”
His heart started to pound. No. Impossible.
“But we don’t want children,” he rasped, suddenly strapped for breath.
Sophia had spent her youth caring for her mad father. She, like James, had no desire to take on more responsibility; they were both gratified with each other.
And it wasn’t as if James disliked children. He adored his niece and nephew. But the brats were his sister’s obligation. He just . . . He just couldn’t do this. Not again.
Sophia sauntered toward the bed and settled beside him, slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Shall I fetch you a bottle of rum?”
James dropped his head between his hands. “Blimey.”