Taken by the Pirate (Dukes, Spies, and Lies) by Elizabeth Brighton

Author:Elizabeth Brighton [Brighton, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-24T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Lucas lost track of time as he watched the woman he loved sleep naked beside him with her head pillowed on his chest.

He’d wanted this for as long as he could remember, and he couldn’t count the number of nights he had lain awake imagining her beside him.

Reality was even better.

He stroked the slope of her shoulder, and she snuggled closer to him. A smile curved Lucas’s lips. After everything he had seen and all he had done, he still had a chance at happiness. It wouldn’t be the same as if he had never served king and country, but there could still be happiness for him.

A lot of it.

He hadn’t yet seen thirty years, but he wasn’t a young man anymore. His years on the sea had aged him far more than years in London’s ballroom would have. Lucas would face his father, and the duke would see reason.

Or he wouldn’t, but that wouldn’t change Lucas’s path.

Lucas was uncertain why his father disliked Jacqueline, but he was marrying her, anyway. And if she ended up being a poor match, Lucas would live with the consequences.

Just as he had when a boarding had gone wrong.

He had the scars to show for those. He would bear whatever scars his future decisions demanded of him.

That was the way of a privateer.

And of a duke.

Lucas had cursed himself a thousand times over for not having stood firm against his father and marrying Jacqueline by special license before he accepted Whitehall’s commission. She would have been safe in Winterborough as he did what needed to be done.

But he hadn’t thought he was coming home, and he hadn’t wanted Jacqueline to wait for a dead man. Whitehall had also been suspicious of her French mother. But they were suspicious of all French. If they’d wanted his help badly enough, they would have accepted her. Especially as her mother had already passed.

Not that Mrs. Sinclair had any connections to the French. Jacqueline’s mother hadn’t even been to the Continent since before she had married Jacqueline’s father. If anything, after all Jacqueline’s mother and her family had been through, after all those she had lost, she had more reason than anyone to despise the current regime.

Lucas could have convinced Whitehall. But he also hadn’t wanted to leave Jaqueline at Winterborough knowing what his father thought of her. Hadn’t wanted to put her through that day after day. So he’d put her through a different torment.

He’d been a fool.

Jacqueline would have handled his father, and she would have rather waited for him. She would have chosen what they could have, would have chosen not knowing if he was going to live or die than spending years mourning for him.

It would have made them both a lot happier during his seven years at sea if he would have followed his convictions and married her.

In trying to protect her, he had hurt them both.

It was a mistake he would try not to repeat.

Lucas stroked a calloused hand over Jacqueline’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.