Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes) by Lily Silver

daughter from Boston, had
accompanied her father to the east to purchase silks years ago. Their ship was
taken by Barbary pirates. Her father escaped and sent word to Jack that Amelia
had been sold to an Arab prince. He authorized Jack to empty his bank account
for a ransom. Jack arrived with the funds for her release, only to learn that
his beloved had been executed one week earlier for defying her captor.
    Half mad with grief, Jack turned to piracy. They crossed
swords on the Indian Ocean as rival corsairs. Donovan shot Jack in the leg
during their skirmish. Jack kept fighting with the spirit of a Viking
berserker, propping himself up on a barrel and artfully deflecting his
opponent’s blade, all the while assaulting Donovan with that wide, brilliant
grin--until he passed out from loss of blood. Donovan removed the bullet and
weaned the sailor from his opium addiction. They formed an alliance, becoming
The Raven and Black Jack, and made their fortune terrorizing ships in the East
Indies.
     Donovan turned his empty glass about in his hands. He
wished he could be like Jack and toss back a bottle now and then to forget.
There were risks for those seeking forgetfulness at the bottom of a bottle. His
body would forever bear the marks of such carelessness. He could have stayed
home and studied medicine at Harvard College in America. But no, as a lad of
seventeen he wanted to be free of his overprotective mother and her smothering,
so he felt it necessary to put a sea between them. If he hadn’t been
perpetually drunk during his time in Paris, he might have noticed his uncle’s
seditious bent and distanced himself from the man before the King’s Guard came
to his uncle’s chateau to arrest them both.
    What a sorry pair they made, Jack and himself. They often
debated who had saved whom from madness in the East. The truth was they had
somehow managed to save each other.
     

 
    Chapter
Eight
     
     
    That strange man was sitting in the chair beside her bed
again. He was reading, unaware Elizabeth was awake and studying him. Shoulder
length black hair was secured in a neat queue. He wore a clean linen shirt with
the sleeves rolled up at the elbows. A neatly tied stock hung from his neck,
secured by a ruby pin. A black silk vest shot with gold and green threads
remained unbuttoned. Black breeches hugged muscular thighs, disappearing
beneath gleaming Top boots. His hands were neatly manicured. A signet ring
circled one finger but she could not make out the crest in the dim light. It
was obvious the man was a gentleman, not a sailor.
    She tried to remember who he was and why she was here with
him. There was the vague impression that he had rescued her, yet how she came
to be in that dark hold in the first place and needed his rescuing was a
mystery to her. “Excuse me, Sir?”
    Pale blue eyes gazed up from the book. Hair as dark and
shiny as a raven’s wing swirled in elegant swathes about a face that had been
lightly kissed by the sun. What mischievous pooka had enchanted this handsome
man to make him take an interest in her affairs?
    “Do you need to use the privy closet?” He set the book aside
and started to rise.
    “No!” Elizabeth flushed scarlet, all the romance of the
previous moment effectively doused as she recalled he’d been carrying her to
that small closet frequently during her illness. “I-I just needed to ask you a
question, sir, that’s all.”
     He sat down, hunching forward slightly, elbows resting upon
splayed knees, his large hands laced together before him. “Go ahead.” He sighed
with an air of resignation.
    “You’ve been very kind to look after me, sir. I’m afraid I
don’t recall your name.”
    “Dr. Donovan O’Rourke Beaumont, Count Rochembeau, at your
service, my lady.”
    “You’re a doctor and a nobleman? How can that be?”
    “My father was the younger son of a French Count. Being the
younger son and not the heir, he went off to make his fortunes in the American
colonies. He