“Do you know what happens to women found in the officers’ quarters?” Her clean, fresh scent was like a siren call. He dipped his head and tasted those lips again, fully intending to savor them this time around … and every other part of her. She tasted of the ocean and he drank her in, flicking his tongue, wanting—demanding—more.
He ached to slide into her and lose himself in her wet heat.
She whimpered and encircled his neck with her arms, burying her fingers in his hair. Her breasts rubbed against him, dragging an enraged groan from him. He yanked her closer, wanting her closer still.
She kissed him back, with an ardor and passion he’d never experienced before.
He walked forward, forcing her to retreat until she came up against the wall.
“Yes,” he whispered against her lips, his hands trailing from her shoulders to her sweet, oh so sweet, derriere. He pushed his erection into the warm V of her thighs, nearly shouting with triumph and the promise of release.
Yes, yes, yes.
“Nicholas.” She breathed his name against his cheek.
Pins fell from her hair, and for once it wasn’t wound into that damnable braid. Hair tumbled past her shoulders and he sifted his fingers through the thick, silky strands.
She tilted her head back and he kissed her throat, nipping the sensitive skin. Her cries of pleasure nearly buckled his knees. Damn, but he wanted her here, against the wall. He wanted to drive into her, plunge his rod so far into her he could feel her womb.
“Emmaline.” He chanted her name between kisses and she mewled in agitation, her legs widening for him. He reached for her skirts.
A harsh, grating sound rent the air. The ship shuddered, tilted. Emmaline stumbled, ripped from Nicholas’s arms. He grabbed for her, snagging her arm and pulling her upright.
Above them, men began running about. Metal thudded on wood.
Even though his mind registered it all, his hands were still reaching for her.
Emmaline shook his arm. “Grappling hooks.” Her voice was tight, her eyes betraying no emotion.
“Damnation!” Grappling hooks meant pirates. They were under attack. He swung around and headed for the cabin door. Wrenching it open, he pointed at her. “Stay put. Do not leave this room.”
Nicholas rushed out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him. Emmaline leaned against the wall for support because her legs certainly couldn’t hold her. She pressed a hand to her racing heart and the other to her tingling lips.
What just happened here? How had she let everything get out of control?
Madness.
She closed her eyes, feeling the length of his body flush against hers, the steel of his manhood rubbing against her. She’d never felt like this before, all warm inside, goose bumps running up and down her body, a heaviness between her legs.
She’d wanted it, she wouldn’t deny it. She wanted more than what he was giving her, and would have done anything to get it.
Thank the Lord the pirates attacked.
She lifted her skirts and pulled her stiletto from the sheath tied to her thigh. Another reason to be thankful they’d been interrupted. She would have had a difficult time explaining the lethal weapon.
Ignoring Nicholas’s final command, she left his office.
“Like bloody hell, I’ll stay put,” she said to the deserted corridor.
Emmaline stepped onto the deck and immediately sidestepped two men clasped together in battle. The pop of pistols and the smell of cordite pierced the thick fog that hung over the deck.
A leering, dirt-smeared face materialized out of the fog, and arms lunged for her. She plunged her stiletto into the man’s heart, then bent to remove her blade, cursing her gown and wishing she’d worn more sensible clothes. Fighting clothes.
She marched into the melee, searching for Addison. Her heart beat unevenly. Not from the fighting, but from fear for Addison.
“Where the hell are you?” she muttered. That her first thought had been about his safety both worried and aggravated her.
She stumbled upon two men locked together. One of the men pulled his pistol out and shot the other. He stumbled back, knocking her over and landing on her.
She pushed him off and scrambled to her feet. He stared up at her with dead eyes and a gaping wound where minutes ago his heart beat.
Bugger it all. She’d lost her stiletto when he fell on her. She searched the deck, toeing the dead man out of the way to look beneath him. She had to find the dagger. It was the only weapon she had.
Desperate, she bent down and felt with her hands. The deck was slick with fog and now the blood of the dead man. She ignored the blood, frantic to locate her weapon.
She smiled when she spotted a sheathed dagger tied to his waist. As her fingers closed over it, she was yanked back.
She twisted in her captor’s hold, raised the knife and plunged it toward him. The man stepped back and the dagger whistled through the air, missing him.
He smiled, sickly yellow eyes glowering at her. He was huge. Possibly the biggest man she’d ever seen. His hands were as big as hams, his forearms bulging with muscles.
Emmaline swallowed and snapped a side kick to his groin, but the kick was ineffectual, hampered by a stone’s worth of skirts. Her feet tangled in the fabric and she fell. The man laughed at her puny attempt and grabbed her arm, pulling her up and squeezing her wrist until her fingers turned numb. The dagger fell to the deck and skittered away. He picked her up as if she were no bigger than a bilge rat and carried her through the mess of fighting men.
Anger rolled over her at the irony of falling victim to a pirate attack, and she did the only thing she could—she pounded his back and kicked her legs, but her strikes were futile. Didn’t people see this giant carting off a woman? She lifted her head and brushed her hair from her face. With a sinking heart she observed Addison’s men cowering before the pirates, not even fighting back. They’d lost before the battle even began.
The giant put her on her feet, tied her hands behind her back and thrust her over the side of the Pride.
She landed on the deck of the other ship. Immediately, pirates surrounded her, their faces alight with the possibility of a woman and all the things they could do to her.
She scrambled to her knees, off balance with her hands tied behind her. Some sneered. Others looked at her with a light in their eyes she didn’t want to comprehend.
She turned in a circle to keep all of them in her sight. Someone shoved her from behind.
Like a child’s plaything she bounced between them, their laughter echoing through the thick fog. Instead of giving in to her fear, she let her anger take over and memorized the face of each man. One especially foolish pirate grabbed her around the waist and yanked her against his body. She head-butted him. Bone crunched and he howled, blood spurting from his broken nose.
The playful mocking turned ominous and the hands became rougher, touching places no stranger had business touching.
Someone shoved her hard and she fell, landing on her shoulder. Pain shot up her arm and into her neck. Instinctively, she curled into a ball, anticipating the blows and kicks. However, the hooting and laughter abruptly stopped, followed by a near deafening silence.
The toe of a dirty boot nudged her shoulder. She looked up and groaned at the familiar face.
“Well, lookie here.” Her captor smiled, revealing a row of gold teeth to match the gold hoops in his ears. Black eyes twinkled with amusement from a dirty face. Greasy black hair was pulled back and tarred into a queue. A red rag covered his head. Of all the pirates in the vast ocean to find her, it had to be this one.
Emmaline tried to push herself up, but he stopped her by poking his cutlass in her stomach. “Not so fast.”
Her gaze skittered to the crew of the Pride. Bruised, battered, bloody and terrified, they stood in a ragged line behind the pirates.
Samuel listed to the side, one eye nearly swollen closed. Addison stood straight, his shirt splattered with what sh
e hoped wasn’t his blood. His eyes were narrowed in seething fury. Their gazes locked. He took a step toward her but was blocked by the massive arm of the pirate who had dumped her on this ship.
Her captor grabbed her arm and dragged her away. She stumbled behind him, looking over her shoulder at Addison.
“Emma—” The large pirate cuffed him on the side of the head. Addison fell to the deck. She turned away. She’d do more harm if the pirate captain recognized her interest in Addison. Her strength now lay in her bargaining powers.
She turned to the pirate leader and raised her chin. “Alphonse.”
A corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Anne.”
Chapter Five
“You’re ruining some very well-laid plans of mine.” Emmaline wriggled her fingers, hoping to loosen the knot.
“Do tell.” Alphonse rocked back on his heels, looking at her from under half-closed lids.
Emmaline sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling at the stench of body odor, tobacco and rum. “You need a bath.”
His smile was slow and disgusting. “Care to join me?”
“I’d rather be fed to the sharks.”
Alphonse tapped his fingers against his arm. “So,” he said after some length. “I find it interesting the notorious Lady Anne travels on a Blackwell ship, eh?”
Emmaline shot a quick look in Addison’s direction but they were too far away for him to hear. He’d picked himself up and was glaring at the giant. “What I do and don’t do is none of your concern.”
“Ah, but it is. Because, you see, you are my prisoner now.” He smiled. “And quite pleased I am about it.”
What she had to say next made her stomach turn and the blood move faster through her veins. Alphonse was the only thing standing between success and starting over again. She threw her shoulders back and straightened her spine.
“I seek a favor of you.” It should have come out as a polite request. Instead she said it through gritted teeth.
Alphonse threw his head back and laughed. The odor of unwashed body and stale breath assaulted her and she stepped back, suddenly nauseous.
Alphonse settled down to a few chuckles and looked at her in amusement. “And why should I help you?” His voice turned cold, hard. “I ought to sell you as a slave.” He caressed her cheek, his gaze turning hot. “Or mayhap I’ll keep you for myself.”
She shuddered in revulsion. “Do it”—this time her voice went cold and hard—“and Phin will hunt you down as I’ve hunted Blackwell for these past eleven years. I can promise it won’t be a pleasant death.”
Alphonse winced as fear flickered in his eyes and his face paled. Phin’s reputation was well-known and well-feared, even by pirates of Alphonse’s caliber. An eternity passed as he seemed to weigh the odds of keeping her versus helping her.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked in resignation.
They sat on the deck, exposed to the rain that pushed the fog away hours ago, their hands tied behind their backs. Alphonse’s grappling hooks still attached his ship to the Pride.
“Do you believe now,” Addison said into the dark, startling her out of her own musings.
“Believe what?”
“At Dorothy’s ball you said you believed pirates were a thing of fairy tales. Now do you believe they exist?”
She stared at the dreary, gray dawn, searching the horizon and remembering the ball and her harmless flirtation with Captain Addison. She’d had an ulterior motive in approaching him that night, but discovered she enjoyed their conversation. She liked goading him, pushing him past his preconceived notions, and she enjoyed their quick repartee. Their conversations invigorated her and his kisses …
To her horror, her face heated and her breasts puckered with the remembered feel of his hands on them. She rested her head against the railing and closed her eyes. After tonight nothing would be the same. He would discover her true identity, and contempt and revulsion would replace his desire.
He thought he was simply playing with a bored, unconventional married woman, when in fact she was still a virgin. Deadly with a sword, and a better ship’s captain than most men, but still a woman untouched by a man.
That’s not the type of woman someone like Captain Nicholas Addison wanted.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I believe pirates exist.”
Alphonse’s attack on the Pride had been nothing but sheer luck on the pirate’s part. It infuriated her that his ill-timed, nefarious duties coincided with and interrupted her own. But more than that, it enraged her that he’d stolen time from her. Time she would have spent with Addison.
“Emmaline.”
“Yes?” She liked that he called her by her given name. Not many even knew she was born Emmaline and not Anne. It made her feel like a normal person.
“I’m sorry about … Well, about what happened in my office.”
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at the stars. Her face grew hotter. Not with embarrassment, as he would probably assume, but with anger. How dare he take her one good memory and taint it with an apology. Now she felt cheap, when before she felt wanted and cherished and treasured.
She’d been wanted before—as a captain, as a pirate, as a warrior, but always as Anne, never as Emmaline.
“Think nothing of it. ’Twas merely a folly.” She was pleased her voice didn’t betray her emotions. If Nicholas Addison could dismiss their kiss, she could as well.
Silence stretched between them and she struggled to battle her humiliation.
“Yes. Well.” Nicholas’s words were husky and he cleared his throat. “What did you and the pirate talk about when he dragged you away?”
Emmaline turned her head and blinked rainwater from her eyes. Nicholas Addison was no fool. He saw that she wasn’t afraid of Alphonse and had in fact stood up to him. Yet she couldn’t tell him the truth.
Alphonse suddenly appeared and yanked her up by her arm. She gasped at the hot needles shooting from her elbow to the tips of her fingers, bringing them to life for the first time in hours and resurrecting the pain of her fall to the deck. She was glad for the pain because it erased the other feelings she wasn’t equipped to deal with.
With a strangled sound, Addison struggled to stand. Occasionally she caught him shifting restlessly and grimacing. She recalled the night of Dorothy’s ball and the hitch to his step, and wondered what injury he sustained that maimed him for life.
He made it to his feet, and with a small hop to put his weight on his right leg, stood beside her, his broad shoulders straight in his tattered shirt.
Alphonse dragged her a few paces away and swung her around. Addison moved to follow, but was stopped again by the giant.
“I’ve done what you asked,” Alphonse growled, his eyes flashing with anger. “I signaled to Phin like you said. He signaled back and should be here soon.”
“Good.” The plan all along had been to have her partner, Phin, follow the Pride at a good distance in case she needed backup. If there was any time she needed backup, now was the time.
A swell shifted the ship. Thrown off balance, Emmaline fell against him. He grabbed her arm, his hand brushing against her breast and the paper safely tucked in there. He stilled, his eyes brightening.
“What have we here?” He groped the outside of her bodice. The paper crinkled. She turned her torso away, less disgusted by his hands on her in such an intimate manner than she was afraid he’d find the paper. In the event Alphonse got it in his head to go after Blackwell’s ship himself, she didn’t want him aware of Blackwell’s shipping schedule. But most important, she didn’t want Addison to discover what she’d been about in his cabin. He would start putting the pieces of the puzzle together and come to the correct conclusion that she was, indeed, Lady Anne. She wasn’t quite ready for that revelation, even though it was looming.
Alphonse grabbed her shoulder to keep her still and plunged his other hand down her bodice, squeezing her breast. Addison yelled, and twisted out of the guard’s hands to
lurch forward. He lashed out with his foot, catching Alphonse at the knee. Alphonse crumpled, ripping the paper from her dress.
“No!” She lunged toward him, but with her hands tied behind her back she was unable to grab the paper.
The guard slammed the butt of his pistol into Addison’s stomach. Addison doubled over with a groan.
Back on his feet, Alphonse unfolded the paper and frowned in confusion. It was obvious to Emmaline that Alphonse couldn’t read and a sliver of hope took root.
But Addison straightened and moved behind Alphonse to read over his shoulder. His stunned gaze fell on Emmaline. “What the bloody hell …”
Sensing the paper held significance to both his captives, Alphonse grinned and prepared to tear it in half.
“No!” As soon as the word escaped, Emmaline realized her mistake, but it was too late.
Alphonse pulled his dagger and placed the tip against Addison’s throat. Addison stilled, his eyes flashing at her in fury.
“Decide,” Alphonse said. “The paper or the captain.”
She looked at Addison, his head bent back, the point of Alphonse’s dagger digging into his exposed throat. Her gaze slid to the paper fluttering in Alphonse’s outstretched hand. In his grimy grasp he held many month’s worth of planning, and a step toward a goal she’d pursued for eleven years.
This summer would have been the end. She would have walked away from her father, vindicated and exuberant in her revenge.
Addison stared at her with navy-blue eyes, unwavering, full of hatred.
He knew what the paper was. He understood what she’d stolen from him. He’d thought her a good person. A month ago she would have laughed at the concept, but now she withered inside. She wasn’t good. Hadn’t been good in a long while. It had never bothered her before, but now it hurt that Nicholas Addison knew the truth.
“I’m waiting,” Alphonse said.
How unfair was this? A man’s life or her life’s work? Her mind flashed back to the park bench in Boston, and the young girl anxious to speak to her father. Was part of that naïve child still inside her? Had she turned so cold and hard she would throw a good man’s life away for her own dreams?
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 5