Gallant Rogue (Reluctant Heroes Book 3) Read Free

white hands brushed down the sides of her silk skirts, and he immediately realized he’d listed in the wrong direction and had gone off course. “Oh, Jack! I’m sorry.”
    She rarely called him Jack. It was always captain or Captain Rawlings. Elizabeth Beaumont was English, after all. That she said his Christian name and with such sorrow boded only ill for his cause.
    “Sorry, for what, Madame Beaumont?”
    “Chloe has married Uncle Gareth. You are too late, Captain.”
    “What. . .? When? ” Jack was certain the woman must be misinformed.
    “Uncle Gareth proposed to her last night after the party. They had a secret wedding on the beach at sunrise this morning. My lord and I were the only witnesses. Please, captain, do not betray them. They wish to keep it a secret with the count’s mother also arriving late last night. It is a delicate situation. I pray I may depend upon you, sir?”
    “Yes,” Jack mumbled, feeling as if he’d just swallowed a bucket of sand.  Too late!
     

 
     
    Chapter One
     
    February 1808, Ravencrest Plantation , West Indies,
     
    Why are some blessed with so much abundance, while others have only emptiness and loss as their portion?
    As she knelt at the stones in the family cemetery situated high up on a grassy plateau overlooking the turquoise sea, Chloe despised herself for her unkind thoughts. And yet, thoughts were echoes of deeply buried feelings.
    She shouldn’t compare her life to that of her friend and patroness, Lady Elizabeth Beaumont, the Countess du Rochembeau. It was petty and mean. She couldn’t help it. Sometimes she felt petty and mean, jealous of her beloved friend for possessing such bounty.
    Lady Elizabeth was great with child—her fifth child. The woman already had four healthy children and a rich husband who adored her.
    Chloe had two graves to tend in the family cemetery.
    Her beloved Gareth had many titles in her heart during their time together. Tutor as he taught her to read when she first came here to work as a maid. Friend , when he helped her find her way after she had been raised in position to be Lady Elizabeth's companion. And finally Lover, when they jumped the broom together and secretly became man and wife.
    Tears blurred her vision as she knelt at her husband’s grave. She was surprised to find the tears still came easily. She'd shed enough tears to fill an ocean in the past year. Chloe propped the bright red bougainvillea flowers against the marble headstone bearing the name of her beloved. She took the sugar cakes, a voodoo offering to the deities, from the basket beside her and set them next to the flowers in a neat line. Nine cakes, for nine years of marriage.
    Reaching into the basket a second time, she lifted the small bouquet of white roses she’d picked in the garden just this morning. Chloe sniffed them, inhaling their innocence with longing before placing them on the smaller stone bearing her infant son’s name. At the news of Gareth’s death she went into early labor and delivered a darling boy who lived but a month and was then buried beside his father.
    Two little girls came rushing past Chloe. One had hair as black as ink and the other possessed locks as bright as a polished copper penny.
    “Aunt Chloe, can we go now?  I’m hungry.” The sweet voice belonged to six-year-old Cherie Beaumont, Lady Elizabeth's daughter.
    Chloe looked up from the plots she lovingly tended over the past year. Cherie was chasing a butterfly. Angelica Rose trailed happily along behind her cousin with arms out at her sides like a little bird. Her head was tipped back and her cherubic face was turned up to the sky.
    “Girls,” Angelica's mother called out, “Away from that ledge this instant! Come, help me decorate Granny Sheila’s memorial.”
    Lady Greystowe was standing before the marble obelisk dedicated to Sheila O’Flaherty, the powerful sorceress of Clan O’Flaherty. The woman was not buried here, as she died in England years ago. The young