Escape with a Scoundrel (Escape with a Scoundrel Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Escape with a Scoundrel

  The Escape with a Scoundrel Series

  A Note from Shelly

  Dedication

  Poem

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Shelly Thacker

  Bonus Excerpt: His Stolen Bride

  About Shelly Thacker

  Copyright

  PRAISE FOR

  “4 stars (highest rating). This could be the romance that takes Shelly Thacker to the big time: the hardcover contract, the fan club… Thacker always spins a good story, but this is her best ever. There’s a new depth of soul to go with all that heart.”

  –The Detroit Free Press

  “Thacker skillfully entangles a notorious ex-pirate with a high-born lady turned thief… Offers an exciting and innovative plot…and many steamy love scenes.

  –Publishers Weekly

  “4-1/2 stars (highest rating). Get set for a roller-coaster ride of exhilarating adventure and a romance filled with smoldering sexual tension and lively, passionate love scenes. Shelly Thacker’s exceptional talents soar in this unforgettable romance.”

  –Romantic Times

  “Guaranteed to keep you up nights. The plot is fresh and its telling flawless!”

  –Rendezvous

  A full-length novel of 110,000 words

  Originally published by Avon Books under the title Hearts Run Wild

  This new Author’s Preferred Edition ebook has been extensively revised by the author

  Search keywords: historical romance, sexy romance, Georgian romance, England, romantic adventure, action-adventure, outlaws, pirate, fugitives, stolen jewels

  THE

  SERIES

  These sexy bad boys are on the wrong side of the law—and willing to break all the rules to protect the women they love. Each book in the Escape with a Scoundrel Series is a stand-alone historical romance, so you can enjoy them in any order:

  Book 1: ESCAPE WITH A SCOUNDREL (Nicholas and Samantha)

  Book 2: HER SCOUNDREL EARL (Marcus and Elizabeth)

  Book 3: ONE NIGHT WITH A SCOUNDREL (Saxon and Ashiana)

  Book 4: A SCOUNDREL’S KISS (Max and Marie)

  More Scoundrels coming soon! For the latest news and sneak previews of upcoming books, visit http://www.shellythacker.com/contact to subscribe to Shelly’s free email newsletter.

  A NOTE FROM

  Dear Reader: My assistant and I carefully proofread each of my books before publication. We work hard to produce ebooks that are 100% free of typographical errors. But typos are sneaky little devils, and sometimes they slip past us. If you spot any typos lurking in this book, please visit http://www.shellythacker.com/contact to email them to me. Thank you! Together, we can stamp out sneaky typos.

  Special note: the unusual use of punctuation in chapter 13 of Escape with a Scoundrel was a creative choice on my part and is not the result of formatting errors or sneaky typos.

  Dedicated with love to Claire and Jerilyn,

  who gave my soul new wings

  Love seeketh not itself to please,

  Nor for itself hath any care;

  But for another gives its ease,

  And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

  — WILLIAM BLAKE

  England, 1741

  The sun retreated over the waves, stealing away into the darkness until only a blood-red slash remained along the horizon. That last streak of light and warmth held out against the cold weight of night for only a moment. Then it vanished at last, leaving the pirate ship cloaked entirely in blackness and tendrils of fog.

  Captain Nicholas Brogan stood alone on the battered quarterdeck, leaning on the rail, oblivious to the chill in the autumn air. He held a Jamaican cheroot clamped between his teeth, its fragrant smoke curling around his beard as he slowly exhaled. He barely tasted the rich tobacco. The glowing tip made a tiny beacon until he ground the cheroot out and flicked the stub into the icy waters of the North Sea. He kept his gaze fastened on the shoreline. Patience, he warned himself.

  Most of the inhabitants of the small coastal village had settled into their homes for the evening. He had chosen the perfect place. Waited for the perfect night.

  He glanced upward, gauging his chances one last time. No moonlight penetrated the clouds overhead. And this remote town employed neither street lamps nor watchmen. No one would notice him. Or even see him.

  He wouldn’t have to wait much longer. Another hour, perhaps less. Already a drowsy air had descended along the coast with the fog. The villagers would even now be gathering around their hearths. Though he could not see inside the scattered hovels that hugged the shoreline, he could imagine.

  He could remember.

  Near the light of each fire, a family would share supper and linger afterward, husbands repairing their fishing nets, children playing with toy boats, wives sewing or reading aloud from the Bible….

  One corner of Nicholas’s mouth lifted in a cynical smile. Such good, God-fearing people. As secure in their faith as they were behind the thick daub-and-wattle walls of their thatched-roof homes. So certain that good would always triumph over evil, that God was merciful. That their sins would someday be forgiven.

  That heaven awaited at the end of their lives.

  He shifted his gaze away from the town, out over the dark waters of the sea. What panic would erupt, he mused, if they suspected what lurked in the night aboard the small, ragged schooner anchored just offshore, so close to their orderly little town.

  But of course none of them could suspect. No one in all of England knew that Nicholas Brogan, scourge of the Atlantic, terror of the Caribbean, despised by every law-abiding, God-loving Englishman, had returned.

  Against his will.

  The breeze changed directions suddenly, noisily snapping the patched canvas sails, snatching at his cotton shirt, raking through his black hair as if to push him away. Away from this place, from England. From the danger that awaited him.

  But he could not turn back. He had no choice.

  He would wait one more hour, and then he would go ashore. And break the familiar commandment one more time.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  A sound behind him interrupted his thoughts—the sound of booted feet on the ladder that led up from the main deck.

  “We could be halfway to Brazil by now,” a deep voice, heavily accented with the lilt of the Gold Coast, grumbled from the darkness. “Or Tortuga. Or up to our scuppers in grog and bawds in Hispaniola. I’ll bet those shapely twins we tupped back in ’31 still have fond memories of us—”

  “Stow it, Masud.” Nicholas returned his gaze to the coastline. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life on the run. If that was what I wanted, I wouldn’t have taken such pains to disappear in the first place
.”

  His quartermaster swore under his breath and came to stand beside him at the rail, offering a bottle of rum brought up from the galley. “Then I suppose it’s useless to tell you again that this plan is insane.”

  “It’s been useless the last fifty times you’ve said it.” Nicholas irritably waved the bottle away. “No reason to believe it’ll work now. This isn’t as risky as you think.”

  “Oh, no, of course not. You’ve hardly any enemies in England. Merely the entire Royal Navy, every magistrate, warder, watchman, and marshalman in the country, various thief-takers and adventurers who would love to collect the ten thousand-pound bounty on your head, and assorted other friendly types with old scores to settle. You’re perfectly safe here.”

  Nicholas shot him a quelling glance, but the moonless, starless night made it almost impossible for them to see one another. Though he could barely make out the African’s angular features, he could hear the concern in his voice. Nicholas shook his head. Even after twelve years, he hadn’t grown used to that—someone being concerned about him. Calling him friend.

  Nicholas Brogan called no one friend. He trusted no one.

  He never had. He never would.

  “The man known as the reclusive Mr. James is perfectly safe here,” Nicholas insisted. “I’m an ordinary colonial, a simple planter from South Carolina. The authorities have no reason to harass me or even notice me. I haven’t broken a single one of His Majesty’s laws. Haven’t pilfered a shilling. Haven’t bothered a soul—”

  “Haven’t so much as crossed the street the wrong way on Sunday,” Masud chuckled.

  Nicholas scowled. “The pirate they knew as Nicholas Brogan met a fiery end six years ago,” he declared flatly, absently rubbing his beard, which covered an old scar on his jaw. “He’s dead and buried.”

  “And every person in England believes that. Except one.” Masud gestured with the bottle of rum. “Someone out there on that vast island knows you’re still alive.”

  Nicholas clenched his teeth, anger and frustration simmering inside him. For the past six years, all he had wanted was to find peace. All he had wanted was to be left alone.

  But it seemed both would be forever beyond his reach.

  Masud had spoken the truth: Someone knew that Nicholas Brogan was alive and living in South Carolina. An anonymous note had arrived by post a month ago. A blackmail note.

  The blackmailer claimed to have evidence which he threatened to take to the authorities—unless Nicholas sent the sum of fifteen thousand pounds to a certain pub in York by Michaelmas Day, September twenty-ninth.

  It was a king’s ransom. Or at least a pirate’s ransom.

  And Nicholas didn’t have it.

  This blackmailer seemed to believe the old tales in the penny-post newspapers—stories of the pirate better known as “Sir Nicholas” swimming in gold and jewels, with buried treasure chests scattered hither and yon on exotic islands.

  Nicholas grimaced. It was hell having a legendary reputation.

  The truth was, like most pirates, he’d spent what he’d stolen as fast as he’d stolen it. The truth was he’d plied the seas for fourteen years as a buccaneer with hatred burning in his heart and no thought for the future.

  Until that day in 1735.

  His jaw tightened. Until now, only two people had known he survived that day: Masud, who had pulled him from the burning wreckage, and Clarice, his sometime mistress, who had tended him until he was well enough to leave England.

  Masud intruded on his thoughts. “Anyone could’ve sent that note, Cap’n. Anyone. Clarice might’ve let her guard down after all these years, let the secret slip. Or…” He took a long swallow of rum. “She could be the one blackmailing you.”

  “Aye,” Nicholas said slowly. “I’ve considered that. But Clarice knows I don’t have that kind of money. And if she wanted to do me in, she’s had six years. Why wait until now?”

  “Doesn’t make much sense,” Masud agreed. “On the other hand, ‘Hell hath no fury…’ ”

  Nicholas frowned. If he had to add women scorned to the list, the number of people who would enjoy seeing his head on a pike would easily double.

  “Cap’n,” Masud persisted, “the point is you’ve no way of knowing who or what you’re up against, no friends out there to turn to for help—and a few dozen enemies who’d love nothing better than to kill you.”

  “And none of that matters a damn. Whoever this blackmailer is, I can’t pay. And I don’t want the greedy bugger spilling his guts to the authorities. Which leaves only one choice.” Nicholas’s mouth curved in a humorless smile. “And it’s too late to turn back now, since I’ve already posted the package.”

  He’d sent it just before leaving South Carolina—a package addressed precisely as the note had instructed, containing not fifteen thousand pounds…but worthless blank paper.

  He’d posted it on one of the Falmouth brigs that sluggishly collected mail along the American coast. It wouldn’t reach York until a fortnight from now. Just before Michaelmas. It would look perfect, right down to the South Carolina tax stamps on it.

  And he would be at the pub long before it arrived, lying in wait to see who showed up to collect it.

  “Aye, Cap’n, you’ve planned it all carefully,” Masud conceded. “You’ve ample time before he makes good his threat. But if something goes wrong and he doesn’t hear from you by Michaelmas Day—”

  “Oh, he’ll hear from me by then,” Nicholas said darkly. “He’ll hear from me.”

  Masud fell silent, as if trying to devise one final reason why his captain shouldn’t do what he had made up his mind to do. The African possessed the most annoying ability to do battle with words as skillfully as he did with pistol and cutlass.

  Masud scuffed his boot over the deck planks, the wood scarred by years of grappling hooks, cannon shot, bullets. “You know, Cap’n, I never guessed we’d actually make it this far. Thought for sure our old scow here would sink before we made it a mile out of the Carolinas.” He chuckled. “But it seems she’s in better shape than either one of us.”

  Nicholas didn’t laugh.

  Masud sighed heavily. “Just grant me one favor.” He set the bottle aside, and Nicholas heard him withdraw something from inside his frock coat. “Take this with you.”

  Nicholas couldn’t see what it was, but he knew. “I won’t need it.”

  “You might. Better safe than—”

  “I don’t want it.”

  All trace of humor left Masud’s voice. “Has it crossed your mind that this blackmailer might want your hide instead of your money? He might’ve sent that note hoping to flush you out. You might be playing right into his hands. What makes you think you can slip into England, take the bastard out, and slip away without firing a single shot?”

  Nicholas swallowed hard. He clenched his fists against the pain that knotted his gut. He started shaking, and hoped to God that Masud couldn’t see.

  Masud continued in that low, even tone. “You’ve had a bellyful of killing. I know. I was there. But you can’t go ashore tonight without a gun…”

  Nicholas still couldn’t speak, barely heard the rest. Aye, Masud had been there. But he hadn’t seen everything. He didn’t know.

  Didn’t know what Nicholas had done in winning the revenge he had wanted. Nicholas alone knew the truth, and he had never spoken a word of it to anyone.

  He gripped the rail, his fingers tightening with bruising force as he fought the memories that assaulted him.

  The faces. The voices. The blood.

  And the sound of the single pistol shot that had ended his infamous career.

  That sound still haunted his nightmares. Louder than the roar of the storm that had battered his ship on that insane day, sharper than the crack of lightning that had struck the mainmast like a bolt from God trying to stop him.

  No force of heaven or earth had been able to stop him that day. He hadn’t even cared that his own ship was ablaze as he blew Captain Eldridge�
��s Royal Navy man-of-war out from beneath him.

  Eldridge’s men had swept aboard Nicholas’s ship—some fighting his pirate crew, some simply trying to save themselves—but by then they had all known they were about to die together. Nothing could save them from the fire or the sea or each other.

  Slashing his way toward Eldridge with his cutlass, Nicholas’s only thought had been to take the bastard with him when he died. But the navy men swarmed over him, protecting their commander. In a blind rage, Nicholas hacked one man down, drew his pistol, spun, and fired at the next blue uniform he saw.

  And realized too late that it was only a boy.

  A cabin boy. Ten or twelve. Too young to know the difference between guts and stupidity.

  In that frozen instant Nicholas had felt the rain on his face, so cold. Like a slap from the grave. So icy, deathly cold.

  Unspeakable horror held him immobile as he stared into the boy’s eyes, watching the lad fall. In that innocent gaze he saw himself at the same age. Saw clearly for the first time what he had become since. What his quest for vengeance had made him.

  A soulless animal.

  And in the boy’s face he saw other faces. Too many faces. So many lives cut short by his hand. So much blood spilled in fourteen years.

  A second later an explosion turned the world black.

  Days after that, he had awakened to find himself at Clarice’s in London—and every newspaper full of stories about his well-deserved fiery end. The admiralty mourned the loss of the heroic Captain Eldridge, and declared the hated Nicholas Brogan dead. Both buried at sea. The bounty on his head was never paid.

  As soon as he was well enough to get out of bed, Nicholas had slipped out of the country and left it all behind him. Piracy. England. All of it.

  Even pistols. Especially pistols. He hadn’t touched one in six years.

  He did not want to risk unleashing the animal within.

  “…listen to reason,” Masud was saying. “And just take the damn thing—”