How To Please a Pirate

by Mia Marlowe

  “A totally unnecessary plan as I have no intention of taking possession of anything,” Gabriel said. “Besides, I suspect my father would have a thing or two to say about being turned out. Rhys Drake may be getting on in years but the old dragon won’t leave the Caern till they carry him out feet first.”

  Jack’s brows lowered and she studied Gabriel through narrowed eyes. “Lord Drake is dead, God rest him.”

  She wielded no sword, but she couldn’t have delivered a more ringing blow. A stone lodged in Gabriel’s chest. He sank onto the nearest rock as he tried to wrap his mind around the thought of a world where his indomitable father was no more.

  “But unless you’re bastard born,” Jack said, quick to follow up her verbal wallop with another telling strike, “Lord Drake couldn’t have been your sire. The old lord only had two sons and they’re both gone to God, too. The elder by a fever and the younger by the sea.”

  His brother dead, too. This was an ill-starred day all around. Gabriel dragged a hand over his face and looked up to find Jack staring at him quizzically.

  “You can’t be him.” She swiped her nose on her shirtsleeve. A nice boyish touch, but it came far too late to fool him. “The youngest son’s ship went down with all hands.”

  “Aye, well, there’s down and there’s down,” Meriwether explained. “When we poor mariners what sank the Defiant found out Gabriel was a navigator trained, we sort of commandeered him as it were.”

  “Mariners?” Jack shot a glare at the old rascal. “You mean pirates!” She turned back to Gabriel. “And you went with them willingly?”

  Gabriel snorted at her outrage. Had he ever been that cocksure about anything?

  “They fished me out of the burning wreckage and offered me a choice. Turn to piracy or claim a watery grave then and there.” Gabriel knew his father wouldn’t have approved of his choice, even to save his skin. Not that Rhys Drake had ever approved of anything Gabriel did. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It was a compelling argument for a change of career at the time.”

  “And a brilliant career he made of it, let me tell ye—”

  “That’s enough, Meri.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” Meriwether said with a grimace, then he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But ye ought to know they called him the Dragon of the Caribbee—”

  “That’ll do, Mr. Meriwether.”

  A flash of recognition crossed Jack’s face. “I’ve heard of you. The Cornish Dragon, terror of—“

  “Just Gabriel Drake, if you please.” He rose and sketched a mocking bow. “Your servant.”

  “Gabriel Drake,” she repeated, her ears and cheeks going scarlet as she realized her error. He was no usurper after all. The man had every right to be here. Jack dipped in a quick curtsey, then remembered herself and returned his bow. She was doggedly determined to keep up her male disguise. “My Lord Drake.” Then her eyes turned wary. “If that’s who you are in truth.”

  Gabriel was suddenly weary of the game.

  “I’ve no need to prove it to you. Let’s away to the castle,” he said as he lifted her up onto the gelding. The lass gave a startled squeak when Gabriel pinched her bottom. He swung himself up behind Jack with a satisfied nod. She tried to wiggle down, but he pulled her tight to his chest. “You can go upright or you can go flopped over the saddle with your bottom bouncing to the sky. In fact, now that I think on it, I believe I’d prefer you like that. But either way, but you’re going with me.”

  She went still as a hare in a thicket.

  “That’s better.” He nudged the gelding into a sedate walk. “To start with, you might tell me what a young lady is doing traipsing about the countryside dressed as a lad.”

  “My lord, I’m not—”

  “Spare me your denials, or I’ll just have to finish unbuttoning that shirt to make doubly certain,” Gabriel threatened. “I may have been at sea a long time, but I still know the feel of woman’s rump when it meets my hand. Now talk.”

  He flicked open the top remaining button on Jack’s shirt and moved down to the next one. Her bared skin was satin to his touch. A bit of meddling with this cheeky wench was just what he needed to ease the fresh ache in his heart. He suspected the best way to irritate Jack was to make sure she enjoyed it as well.

  Irritating her was the best idea he’d had all morning.

  He dipped his head to take her earlobe in his mouth and was rewarded by her sharp intake of breath. He bit down just enough to make her shiver and then released her.

  His voice rumbled by her wet ear. “Who are you in truth?”

  Chapter 2

  “Stop, for pity’s sake, stop and I’ll tell you.” She grabbed at his hand to keep him from moving on to the next button. It was hard enough for Jacquelyn to breathe with her breasts bound so tightly. Being mauled by a bloody pirate made drawing breath even harder. “But in truth, my name is Jack.”

  “Wrong answer,” Gabriel said, popping the next horn button right off.

  A deep vee of flesh showed beneath her throat now as he parted the shirt. Where his fingers stroked her bared skin, a shiver trailed in their wake.

  “Try again,” he suggested as he toyed with a lower button.

  “You, sir, are no gentleman,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “And neither are you, Mistress Jack.”

  His touch was maddening as he slid his fingertips over the bulge of her breasts. She drew a hitching breath. Who’d have guessed his naked hand was more dangerous than his blade?

  “You didn’t really think I was fooled by your boy’s rags, did you? You may have bound them tightly, but there’s no disguising a ripe pair of pips like these,” he rumbled, his tone husky as he continued to tease the tops of her breasts. “As fine a bosom as ever filled a man’s hand.”

  Merciful Heaven! He found the crevice between them and slid a broad finger into the tight space. Her nipples hardened at his hand’s nearness and for a moment, she imagined him plunging beneath her binding cloth to cradle her breasts in his calloused palms.

  A dark part of her wanted him to do just that, she realized in dismay. She struggled against him with renewed vigor.

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” she demanded. “No gentleman would believe it so.”

  “Steady on, lass. Since I’ve already admitted to being a pirate, the fact that I’m no gentleman goes without saying. A name, my sweeting. That’s all I ask. Or perhaps you’d like me to start unbinding you next?”

  Had he somehow guessed at her body’s mutinous reaction to him?

  “Wren. Jacquelyn Wren.” She slapped at his hand as the gelding’s jarring trot rattled her teeth.

  “Well, Mistress Wren, it’s pleased I am to make your acquaintance, to be sure.” He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. “I have been far too long at sea.”

  “Pity you didn’t stay there.”

  He leaned down to whisper in her ear. His warm breath pricked the stray hairs that had escaped her boy’s queue to stand at full attention.

  “I love the grey swells of the sea, it’s true,” he said. “But these swells give a man even more pleasure.”

  His hand splayed across her bound breast. A jolt of something forbidden shot from her nipples to her inner core.

  What was wrong with her? She was no light-skirt, after all. And this man was dangerous.

  If only he didn’t smell so wickedly good . . .

  “Let me go!” she demanded.

  Instead he slid his arm down to her waist and cinched her tight against him. Her thighs rode on his muscular ones. Her bum pressed against his groin. A hard bulge rose to meet her softness.

  “So sorry to disappoint you, Miss Wren. I’m not in the habit of acquiescing to the requests of those who attempt to waylay me,” he said with exaggerated politeness. “There. Was that gentlemanly enough for you?”

  “You wouldn’t know how to behave like a gentleman if your hope of heaven depended upon it!”

  “You’re probably right
,” he said agreeably. “The company of pirates tends to dull a man’s higher sensibilities. But before you cast stones at me, Miss Wren, you might look to your own actions. Leading a party of n’er-do-wells with murderous intent, strutting about in breeches . . . you must admit your own behavior has been far from ladylike.”

  “But I was only trying to protect—“ she stopped herself. The less this brute knew about those at the castle, the better. She might still be able to hide them from him. “I didn’t join in the attack on you, more’s the pity, but I did get a clout on the head for my trouble.”

  “For that you have my profoundest apologies,” Gabriel said. “If I was the one who brought you down, it was purely unintentional. I was defending myself, you see, and didn’t have time to notice your . . . finer qualities.”

  She wouldn’t give Captain Drake the satisfaction of knowing that one of the men she’d lead there was responsible for knocking her senseless.

  “I make it a policy never to strike a woman,” he explained. “Not when there are so many more pleasurable things to do with one.”

  His voice was a rumbling purr at her ear, a beguiling summons to something dark and sinful. She squeezed her eyes shut against the fleshly possibilities his words conjured. So must the Serpent have sounded to Eve. Jacquelyn would not give in to her baser nature.

  He urged his mount into a canter and the rolling gait forced her to move in tandem with him, her body rising and falling with his. The heat from his thighs radiated through the thin homespun of her breeches. Warmth pooled between her legs.

  “If you don’t release me at once, I will report you to the magistrate,” she threatened. “Lord or not, if you’ve played the pirate, no doubt there’s a price on your head. Squire Ramskelter will see you hanged at the next assizes.”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, but that were no good, Miss Wren,” Meriwether said. “I’ll warrant there’s them what would like to see Drake the Dragon dance the hempen jig, but Cap’n Gabriel got himself a royal pardon. Him and all what sailed with him. His Royal Majesty is content to let bygones be bygones. But Cap’n,” here the aging sea dog turned a rheumy eye on her tormentor, “ye’re still bound by the Code same as ever ye were.”

  “A pirate’s code?” Jacquelyn asked in horrified fascination. Were there proper rules for rape and pillage?

  “Aye, Cap’n Gabriel drew up the articles himself, so he did. And every man-jack of us signed on. Himself included!” Meriwether worried his scraggly beard, like a dog chasing its fleas. Jacquelyn shivered in disgust. “And seems to me Article Number Nine goes something like—”

  “I remember the bloody code, Meri.” Gabriel Drake’s grip around her waist eased by the tiniest of margins.

  “Well, I don’t,” she said. “Pray, what is Article Number Nine?”

  “Let me see if I can recollect it entire.” Meri tapped his temple. “Ah! Here ‘tis. ‘If a Man meets a Woman of Prudence and offers to meddle with her without her Consent, the Crew shall suffer that Man to be done to Death presently,’” Meriwether recited.

  He gave his captain a pointed look.

  Jacquelyn straightened her spine and held herself away from the broad expanse of Gabriel Drake’s chest. A pirate’s code was a small enough shield, but it was all she had.

  “Thank you, Mr. Meriwether,” she said, liking him better by the moment, despite his deplorable hygiene and recent threat to fry her liver. “Your code sounds almost civilized.”

  “Meri, remember that the Code specifies the wench in question must be a woman of prudence. What about Jack here makes you think she fits that description?” Gabriel asked. “No proper lady would put herself forward as a lad.”

  “I didn’t know the fellows I was meeting,” Jacquelyn said, irritated that she must explain herself to this disturbing man. “It seemed more prudent to present myself as a boy than as a woman.”

  “Not necessarily, Miss Wren,” Meri said. “There’s places in this funny ol’ world where a pretty little boy is at risk of buggery every bit as much as a pretty young lady.” The old salt’s ears turned bright red when he realized the wholly improper nature of what he’d just said to her. “But I reckon you’ve the right of it, in Cornwall at least. She seems a mighty prudent woman to me, Cap’n.”

  With a snort, Gabriel Drake slowed his mount to a walk and let his arm drop from its place around her waist. He rested his long-fingered hand on his own thigh. But she was still wedged between the big man’s legs, and no help for it unless he allowed her to dismount and walk. At least he’d left off manhandling her as if she was a common strumpet. Jacquelyn was chagrined to discover her nipples still tingled.

  She hastily refastened her remaining buttons, lest he change his mind.

  “So let me understand this, Miss Wren. You were warned of my coming. How?”

  “A note came to the keep bearing a royal seal.”

  She felt him stiffen behind her.

  “So much for my pardon,” he said. “Signed by whom?”

  “There was no signature,” she admitted. “But the seal spoke for itself and the men were waiting for me with their own official orders.”

  “So, someone you don’t know sends you a note telling you to meet some men, whom you also don’t know for the purpose of waylaying yet another man you don’t know.” The rich bass timbre of his voice rumbled along her spine. “I have to ask why a woman of prudence would agree to such a scheme.”

  “I don—”

  “If you say you don’t know, I shall have to rethink my policy about striking a woman,” Gabriel warned. “An exception might be made for your bonny backside.”

  Her bum warmed rosily at this suggestion. Perhaps she was more her mother’s daughter than she wanted to admit. She swallowed her annoyance at her body’s strange reaction to this man.

  “I was going to say, that I don’t take threats to those I love lightly.” The tremor in her voice upset her even more than his nearness. She must not show weakness before this pirate. “The note said a new lord was coming to claim Dragon Caern and, young and old, he would turn everyone in the keep out to starve. I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  “Neither could I,” he said. “Dragon Caern Castle is my home, Miss Wren. Having made peace with my Sovereign, I thought to undertake the harder path and make peace with my father as well. With my brother ever in favor, I never thought to be lord of the place. Last I heard, Rupert had married and was busily engaged in producing an heir.” He fell silent for the space of several heartbeats. “I can’t believe they’re both gone.”

  She felt him take a shuddering breath. Was it possible for a pirate to feel sorrow?

  “Did my brother leave no son?”

  “No,” she said softly. “His lady wife died in childbed trying to bring a stillborn boy into the world.”

  That much at least was true. Gabriel Drake didn’t need to know everything.

  “Then you won’t evict your tenants and retainers to make room for your own people?” she asked.

  They topped the rise and stopped to look down on the square tower of Dragon Caern Castle. Perched on a small spit of land overhanging the roiling sea, the grey, weathered stone almost seemed to have grown there instead of being built by man. Thatch-roofed cottages dotted the verdant lowlands. As far as eye could see, narrow brown roads stretched like spokes of a giant’s wheel leading to the safety of the keep.

  “My own people,” Gabriel repeated softly. “Since the pardon, my crew is gone, scattered to the four winds. Other than Meri here, I have no people.”

  He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment. The pressure was light, but she sensed his bridled strength. When he withdrew it, she breathed a small sigh of relief. This man unsettled her thoroughly.

  “I give you my word, Miss Wren. None who live here have aught to fear from me.”

  The way he set her insides quaking, she took leave to doubt it.

  “Appears to me ye’ve made a well-placed enemy, Cap’n. Who do ye suppose at Court didn
’t want ye coming home?” Meriwether asked.

  “That seems to be the question, doesn’t it? We’ll have to satisfy ourselves on that point, but for now, I am almost home. A sad homecoming to be sure, but home nonetheless.” He waved his arm expansively. “When you pulled me from the water, Meri, I never thought to see it again. You were my boon companion through dangerous seas. Welcome to Dragon Caern Castle, Joseph Meriwether.”

  “Ach! Don’t take on so, Cap’n,” Meri protested. “Ye saved me miserable neck countless times since.”

  Jacquelyn was surprised by the deep fealty between these two obvious scallywags. Who would have thought pirates capable of such ordinary feelings as friendship?

  “Now that you’re a man of leisure, whatever’s mine is yours, mate,” Gabriel said.

  Meri’s eyebrows shot skyward. “This castle o’ yers have a wine cellar, by chance?”

  Gabriel loosed a full, deep-throated laugh. “Used to be one of the best in Cornwall.”

  “Well, then.” Meriwether drummed his heels on his horse’s flanks. “I’ll leave ye know me opinion on it this evening,” he called over his shoulder as he cantered down the hill.

  Gabriel nudged his mount into a walk.

  “We should go faster,” Jacquelyn suggested. Mr. Meriwether’s absence made her even more apprehensive about being so close to Captain Gabriel Drake. “Aren’t you anxious to be home?”

  “Miss Wren, my mother died when I was born. My father and brother are both gone. There doesn’t seem to be a need to hurry now, does there?”

  His sense of loss seemed genuine.

  The folk of Dragon Caern Castle had bitterly mourned the passing of Lady Helen, the hope of an heir dying with her. Then old Lord Rhys was gashed by a boar in a hunting accident. When Lord Rupert was taken by a raving fever a week later, folk spoke of curses coming in threes.

  But since then, life had settled into a comfortable rhythm. The denizens of the keep rejoiced in the relative obscurity of their small corner of the world. It allowed them to continue in peace without interference from the Crown.