Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) Read online

  "But you never wanted to be married, to have a wife...and now you have not only a wife but a child. In time you might grow restless again—feel trapped. I won't hold you with Barbara, Alex."

  "I didn't even know I had a child when I realized what I'd lost in you, Joss. I was immature, irresponsible—hell, I was a callow wastrel." He struggled to find the right words. "I had a lot of time when I thought you were dead to consider why I'd made the bargain I did with you, Joss—why I feared a real marriage so much. My parents are so devoted to each other, if one of them were to die, the other would, too—at least that's what I used to believe. That's the way the Blackthorne men fall in love and it frightened me. I didn't want to take that risk...until I met you."

  "You risked nothing with an ungainly tabby who could never tempt you. I didn't mean to trick you that night in London, honestly I didn't," she added rapidly, before her courage deserted her. "I couldn't sleep upstairs because of the smoke from the fire, you see, so I came down...and yours was the only bed..."

  "Why did you run away in the morning and pretend nothing had happened?" That still rankled him.

  "I had no courage to face you. Not then, nor that day in Coweta when I found you and Water Lily disporting in the river." That still rankled her.

  "Water Lily?" he echoed, confused. Then seeing the hurt expression on his wife's face, he realized what must have transpired. "You saw us and thought that I...that we...?"

  Now Joss was the one confused. "You mean to say she didn't...you didn't...?"

  "Oh, she tried, but I sent her away, Joss. I'd already realized even then that I wanted no woman but my wife."

  His lopsided smile melted her heart. "I misjudged you that day. I should have stayed and faced you, but instead I ran. I still feel as if I don't deserve a man like you—charming as the devil, handsome as an angel...my wicked darling. Beside you I feel inadequate."

  "Inadequate?" he echoed, dumbfounded. "Why, men flock to you like besotted puppies, Joss. I could scarce believe my eyes when I saw you at Chitchester's ball. You were the loveliest woman I'd ever even imagined—but the greatest irony of all is that your beauty didn't really matter," he confessed ruefully. "I loved you for who you were inside. I fell in love with a bright, witty, bold crusader who feared nothing and no one. Your outside appearance never meant a thing once I figured that out, Joss.

  "The question, it seems to me, is can you forgive me for misjudging you? I was afraid you were ashamed of my Muskogee blood when you first came to Coweta. My pride was stung and I treated you abominably, thinking your noble English blood was too fine to mix with a half-breed's. When my father told me you'd been teaching the children at Grandma Charity's school, I knew how wrong I'd been and how brave you were to make a place for yourself there just as you had in London."

  Joss felt the joy blossom deep in her heart and send its warmth radiating through her whole body. She reached out her arms to him and confessed, "I fell in love with you the first moment we collided on the wharf during that riot. You were as golden and beautiful as an angel—albeit a very wicked angel—and I was lost."

  He stroked her face with his hand. "I love you, Joss, and I vow never to be wicked again..." A warm teasing light burned in his dark eyes as he added, "Except with you."

  "Oh, Alex, I shall hold you to that vow for the rest of our lives," she said softly, reaching out to take his hand and press it to her lips. Her eyelids lowered slowly and her words became slurred with drowsiness. She was exhausted from her ordeal.

  "Guard her, Poc," he said quietly. Then he rose and walked across the camp to where the bodies of Kent and Devil Dancer lay in the shadows. One at a time, he dragged them along the edge of the river about a hundred yards and rolled them into the water. Then he returned to stoke up the fire. He would remain vigilant to protect his family. As he sat down to watch over his wife and infant daughter, a deep sense of peace settled over him.

  Epilogue

  Savannah, 1815

  Alex scanned the crowded decks of the schooner while Devon smiled at his son's boyish eagerness. He had been almost like a child awaiting Christmas ever since he had received the rather terse letter some weeks earlier informing him that Alvin Frances Edward Drummond, "casting himself upon the waters of fate," was coming to "the colonies" to visit his friends and inspect "some rustic inn" he had won in a game of chance.

  Frustrated by his failure to see Drum among those lining the ship's rail, Alex cursed quietly, "Damn it all to hell! Where is he?"

  At that precise moment, through the dockside din sliced a decidedly English voice imperiously issuing orders. "Stop stumbling about, you oafs! If you drop one of those trunks over the side, you had best be able to dive and swim more efficaciously than you walk!"

  A Drummond had arrived in America.

  The little dandy, flourishing his walking stick like a teamster's whip, drove three hulking seamen down the gangplank before him, each of them bowed under the weight of a monstrous trunk.

  "Drum, damn your eyes, man, I never realized how much I missed that elegant sneer of yours!" Alex exclaimed, seizing him in a powerful bear hug.

  Drummond's face flushed with pleasure, and not a little from the powerful grasp of his enthusiastic comrade. "Alex, you great lout, put me down! Surely this is no way for one gentleman to great another, even in this wilderness."

  Blackthorne set the little dandy back on his feet. Drum examined his friend with a studied casualness, then asked, "I say, old man, how long has it been since we last saw each other? Over two years? I suggest we never wait longer to renew our friendship. I am quite sure that a three-year reunion welcome would quite snap my spine, at the least!" He turned to the tall man beside Alex, the olive-skinned gold-haired man who had to be his friend's sire.

  "I'd like you to meet my father, Devon Blackthorne. Papa, this is the Honorable Alvin Frances Edward Drummond."

  As Devon extended his hand, the dandy quickly amended, "Drum to my friends, sir."

  "Then you must call me Dev, for though we only just met, I count you a cherished friend indeed. I understand that you saved this wastrel's worthless hide several times." Smiling, he nodded toward his son. "My wife and I are forever in your debt."

  Drum shook his head. "No, sir...Dev. Friends, sir, friends! Let us not speak of debts."

  "Yes, Papa, Drum has a violent aversion to debts—to paying them, at least. And that, I warrant, is why we now have the pleasure of his company."

  The Englishman fixed his friend with his indolently haughty green gaze. "Alex, that comment was boorish, unkind and—at least regarding my presence on American soil—totally untrue. Remember, I am a man of property now. Heigh-ho, where are my dear Amazon and your lovely mother?"

  Eagerly awaiting us at the city house...with a small surprise for you," Alex replied with a grin.

  * * * *

  Standing at the bow window of the Blackthorne city house, Joss watched the three men approaching, gesticulating histrionically, and convulsed with laughter."Boys," Joss murmured as she smiled. "Just like boys."

  "Be forewarned, my darling, they never outgrow it, no matter how old they get," Barbara said as they walked down the stairs to welcome their guest.

  At that moment Poc brushed between the two women to assert his rightful role as official greeter of the Blackthorne household. He barked excitedly and Drum returned his greeting.

  "Egad, my little flea-bitten friend, I would have thought by now that a crocodile would have eaten you."

  "Alligator, Drum, alligator. Crocodiles live in Africa," Joss said with a big smile.

  At the sound of her familiar voice, the little dandy looked up, his gaze settling squarely on her. His smile slowly evaporated as he took in the vision before him, dressed in a gown of soft form-fitting russet muslin. Her heavy mass of sun-bleached hair was piled high atop her head in a cascade of ringlets, and she wore...no spectacles!

  "Jocelyn? Joss, it really is you! Good Lord, gel, you're a beauty! Your eyes, what happened...I mean, y
our spectacles...?"

  Joss smiled, "Dear Drum, it is a long story and we have plenty of time, but first there is someone you must meet."

  As Joss took a squirming toddler from her nursemaid, Barbara and Drum greeted each other warmly. Then he turned to see the child in her mother's arms. Drum stared,fascinated. Her hair was dark blond, almost the exact shade of Alex's. Her eyes were a pale hazel and her skin just the faintest hue of light olive.

  Joss said with the greatest formality, "Alvin Frances Edward Drummond, allow me to present Barbara Drummond Blackthorne, your goddaughter."

  He croaked, "I...I...am..."

  "A godfather," Barbara finished for him.

  "I stood in for you at the christening, but your name is set down in the church records," Dev explained.

  "Now, watch," urged Joss. "She's speaking fairly well for her age."

  Joss put her finger on her friend's chest and said, "Drum. Drum."

  Little Barbara worked her lips, blew a few bubbles and then repeated, "Dum. Dum."

  Lady Barbara commented dryly, "So he seems to have been stricken, child. You are right on the mark."

  Everyone, including Drum himself, laughed at the quip. They made their way indoors with the little dandy gingerly carrying his new goddaughter as if she were the crown jewels. As the door closed, Drum was heard to remark, "I say, if this inn of mine works out, I may just be persuaded to become a colonial. Properly overseeing the upbringing of one's goddaughter is a serious responsibility indeed."

  About the Author

  SHIRL HENKE lives in St. Louis, where she enjoys gardening in her yard and greenhouse, cooking holiday dinners for her family and listening to jazz. In addition to helping brainstorm and research her books, her husband Jim is “lion tamer” for their two wild young tomcats, Pewter and Sooty, geniuses at pillage and destruction.

  Shirl has been a RITA finalist twice, and has won three Career Achievement Awards, an Industry Award and three Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic Times.

  “I wrote my first twenty-two novels in longhand with a ballpoint pen—it’s hard to get good quills these days,” she says. Dragged into the twenty-first century by her son Matt, a telecommunication specialist, Shirl now uses two of those “devil machines.” Another troglodyte bites the dust. Please visit her at www.shirlhenke.com.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About the Author