Their desire is deep as the ocean…but treachery is rising like a deadly tide.
Rogue, Book 5
The first time Shauna MacLeod met American ship captain Robert Henderson, instant attraction brightened up an otherwise dreary Edinburgh winter. But his life was at sea.
Now Robert’s back, a welcome distraction from her daily duties at the MacLeod dock office.
Tricked into a betrothal before he left New Orleans by a woman who then mysteriously disappeared, Robert knows he needs to keep his distance from Shauna, no matter how tempting the rising sexual tension between them.
Between Robert’s past and Shauna’s overprotective family, there’s little opportunity to touch, let alone act on their desires. But when an old enemy of the McLeods in disguise worms his way into Shauna’s good graces, she is abducted and thrown aboard a ship bound for the Barbary slave trade.
Robert, along with Shauna’s brothers, race the four winds to find Shauna before she disappears into some sultan’s harem and is lost to him forever.
Warning: Contains a bold American sea captain, and a spirited Scottish lass who’d like to swash his buckle—if only her suspicious brothers would leave her be. Best enjoyed with a tankard of ale and a sea chanty or two.
Rogue of the High Seas
Cynthia Breeding
Chapter One
London, January, 1817
She should have known. Shauna MacLeod sighed as she watched the fan-flitting, eyelash-sweeping English girls fluttering around Captain Robert Henderson in the Earl of Sherrington’s ballroom like so many colorful butterflies. Not that she blamed the girls exactly. Captain Henderson’s easy grin dazzled her—and she was standing clear across the crowded room from where the cluster had gathered. She thought she heard his soft American twang drift toward her, but there was too much noise for that to be true. It had to be her imagination.
Which was part of the problem. Her imagination, not usually given to flights of fancy since she was a practical sort of person, had taken off on its own accord since Captain Henderson had returned from Edinburgh. Even now, her breath hitched at the sight of his broad shoulders clad in a black evening coat that seemed molded to him. He was every inch as tall and powerfully built as her brothers, although his hair was sun bleached from spending weeks at sea.
Mari and Abigail, her sister and cousin-by-marriage, joined her, holding cups of punch. “I see Amelia and Violetta did not lose any time attaching themselves to our guest,” Abigail said as she gestured to the group across the room.
“I am surprised they let any of the other girls near,” Mari added. “Those two usually close in on a man like a pair of she-wolves taking down prey.”
Shauna gave her a startled glance. “They cannae be that bad.”
“They can. They dogged Jamie’s heels every chance they got,” Mari replied and then giggled. “Not that it did them any good. He married me.”
“And Shane married me,” Abigail said and patted her slightly rounded stomach. “Although they gave him a pretty chase too.”
Shauna smiled. “Which just proves both my brother and my cousin finally used the gey good sense God gave them.”
Mari gave her a sideways glance. “I suspect Captain Henderson has good sense too.”
“Of course he does,” Abigail said as she adjusted her spectacles. “He will see through those silly ninnyhammers in no time.”
Shauna hoped the light from the overhead chandeliers was dim enough to block out the blush she felt sweeping her face. The last thing she needed was for her friends to realize how besotted she was with the man. It was silly. She’d met him at Shane’s dock office in Edinburgh last year. He had been polite and very much the gentleman the few times they’d conversed. Nothing more.
“’Tis good he’s enjoying himself,” she managed to say. Although, did he really have to be enjoying himself so much? Even from where she stood, she could see how easily he captivated the bevy of girls, smiling at each one, holding her gaze as she chatted until another one vied for his attention. Not once did he let his eyes stray from the speaker. Shauna had barely finished the thought when he looked up suddenly, his green-eyed gaze meeting hers as though there were no space between them. She looked away quickly since she didn’t want to be caught ogling him. “I guess since the English dropped the embargo, Americans feel more at ease here.”
Mari laughed. “Only you would think about the war when we are discussing a good-looking man.”
“She has a point though,” Abigail said before Shauna could answer. “Since Napoleon is no longer a threat, the shipping lanes have reopened.”
Mari shook her head hard enough that her golden curls danced. “I give up. Both of you keep your noses stuck in books too much. Have some fun.” She nodded toward a corner of the room where a three-piece ensemble was getting ready to play. “Dancing is about to start. I have to find Jamie.”
“Good luck to ye,” Shauna said. “I suspect my brother will be hard to find about now. He hates to dance.”
Abigail looked around the room. “I think Shane may have disappeared as well.”
“Nonsense,” Mari said. “They will not venture far. The whole reason your father is hosting this rout is to send Fiona and Kier off in grand style. Our husbands will not miss it.”
Shauna felt her face heat again, this time from embarrassment. She’d been so busy indulging her fantasies about the captain, she’d almost forgotten that her sister and Kier would be returning to Ireland on the morrow. She reflected on how lucky Fiona had been that Kier believed her when she was purposefully committed to an insane asylum in Dublin through a string of lies. Although Wesley Alton, the captor who had put her there, still managed to elude the authorities, all that was past history. Kier had rescued Fiona and they had fallen in love.
Shauna spotted them now, coming in from the dining room where Jamie and Shane were probably hiding out.
The crowd burst into applause as the musicians struck up a waltz and Kier escorted his bride to the center of the room to lead the dance. Fiona seemed to float across the floor, as light on her feet as the legendary MacLeod faerie. With her ivory skin, raven hair and pearl-grey eyes, she’d always had an ethereal quality about her, but now, totally in love with her husband, her otherworldly look was enhanced.
Shauna had never begrudged her younger sister being beautiful. However, with the English debutantes swirling about—either Violetta or Amelia was dancing with Captain Henderson—she wished she’d inherited a bit of Fiona’s looks. Instead, her brown hair held just a glint of auburn and her hazel eyes were not the striking tawny color of Jamie’s. Her features were regular but plain. She certainly didn’t turn heads when she entered a room.
“There they are!” Mari said as Jamie and Shane finally made an appearance at the far end of the ballroom. She grabbed Abigail’s arm. “Let us catch them before they get away again.”
“We should not leave Shauna standing here alone,” Abigail murmured, although her eyes were on her husband.
“Ye go on,” Shauna said. “I think I’ll get a wee bit of punch.”
“If you are sure—”
“Aye. Ye go,” Shauna replied with a smile. “’Tis nae often ye can convince those two to dance.”
She watched them hurry away and was about to head toward the punch table when a second tune began. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Captain Henderson switch partners—Violetta or Amelia, whichever had had to wait her turn—was now in his arms. The captain glided smoothly across the floor, obviously practiced in the art of dance. The other girls who had been in the cluster talking to him lined up alon
g the wall, eagerly waiting. From the determined looks on their faces, Captain Henderson would be dancing with every one of them.
Shauna turned and walked toward the hall that led to the bedchambers upstairs. She would say goodbye to Fiona in the morning.
Where the hell had she gone? Robert turned his partner—Violetta or Amelia, whoever one it was—while his eyes searched the room for Shauna. The place where she’d stood talking to her in-laws was empty. He scanned the other dancers and spotted Jamie and Shane with their wives, but not a trace of the one person he wanted to see. The person he’d actually attended the ball to dance with.
“Captain Henderson, you are an exquisite dancer.” The lady in his arms all but purred at him as she batted her lashes.
He decided she must be Violetta, since her eyes were almost that color. “Thank you,” he said and added courteously, “May I say the same for you?”
“Oh, goodness. I am quite sure my dancing depends much on your leading in such a practiced manner.” Her lashes swept her cheeks and she looked up at him alluringly.
A year ago, he would have entered quite willingly into her flirtatious little game and enjoyed it. Even though his sea-faring father had been of Viking descent, his maman was the daughter of a French plantation owner, and he’d grown up in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans, trained in all the nuances of French society. Like chess, the subtle game of cat-and-mouse between ladies and gentlemen required a certain degree of skill to be played well. The game was meant to be enjoyed, the essence of it pleasure that stopped short of dire repercussions.
Until Jane moved into his world. The perfect English rose his maman had called her, but roses have thorns, as he came to find out.
“You suddenly seem preoccupied, Captain.”
“My apologies.” Robert pushed thoughts of Jane aside and forced a smile as he looked down at the girl dancing with him. He had no doubt she had her share of thorns, as did the rest of the young ladies standing by the wall. He didn’t need the stern looks of the mothers watching nearby to remind him to act properly. He wasn’t falling into a prickly patch again. “Let’s enjoy the music, shall we?”
“Of course,” she concurred, edging her hand on his shoulder slightly closer to his neck. “I could dance forever with you.”
Not if the glowering looks the other girls were giving her was any indication. Robert would have found the attention flattering, if not for the irony of it. The one girl—woman actually, since he felt sure Shauna MacLeod was in her twenties—he wanted to dance with wasn’t here.
Shauna was the only woman he’d ever met who didn’t act like a female. He shook his head, since that wasn’t really what he meant. The move drew an inquiring look from his partner. Robert smiled at her again, hoping she would be content to be quiet and just dance. Apparently, it worked, since she only squeezed his shoulder a little harder.
His mind drifted back to Shauna. She was quite definitely female, with gently rounded hips and breasts that weren’t too large but would fit into his palms quite nicely—not that he should be entertaining that thought. He shouldn’t be thinking about how soft her bare flesh would feel under him either.
She intrigued him. Shauna didn’t act flirtatious or coquettish like most of the females he mingled with. She had an open and honest face and she spoke with a directness one didn’t hear often from women. He found her wonderfully refreshing.
To be honest with himself—and he always was—she was the reason he’d made the trip down to London from Edinburgh. His ship had lost steering last month when he and Ian, the older MacLeod brother, had sailed north after bringing Fiona back from Ireland. He could have ordered the wood for the new rudder, but he’d decided to make the trip to the boatyards himself. He knew Shane and Abigail would be returning to Scotland after Fiona’s wedding since Shane ran his shipping line from there, but Robert didn’t know if Shauna would be going back with them.
Winter would soon settle in. By the time he made repairs, it would be risky crossing the Atlantic. The thought had struck him on the way to London that perhaps he could spend the next few months in Edinburgh. The idea of spending cozy nights with Shauna in front of a roaring peat fire strangely appealed to him. His wayward cock began to stir—
“The music has stopped, Captain.”
“Oh. So it has.”
Violetta looked immensely pleased with herself. “Dare I hope you were enjoying dancing with me enough not to want to stop?”
He didn’t want to stop for sure, but it had nothing to do with her. Robert smiled and stepped back, releasing her. “Something like that.”
She gave a victorious look to the pouting girls standing at the wall. “Then I shall look forward to another dance.”
“Of course.” He escorted her back to a chair and gave a short bow before extending his hand to the next girl in line.
The Fates were being cruel for having let Shauna leave. Or maybe the Fates were protecting him.
Hell, he shouldn’t even be thinking about Shauna MacLeod, let alone entertaining the idea of holding her in his arms…or doing more under blankets. Those protective mothers hovering near their daughters couldn’t hold a candle to what the MacLeod men would do if he breached proprieties with Shauna. Kier had told him how Jamie had taken fists to him before Fiona could convince her brother to stop. Robert had sailed with both Ian and Shane enough to know neither of them would hesitate to do the same to him.
But getting into fisticuffs with one—or all three MacLeod men—wasn’t what was going to stop Robert from being anything but a gentleman. There was even irony in that word, he thought, since he had been coerced into acting no less than gentlemanly by what Jane had done to him. The difference was that he wanted to treat Shauna like a lady.
Jane had led him into a compromising situation that had resulted in her declaring them betrothed. Then she had disappeared just before Robert had to take a shipment to Scotland. His brother continued the search for her, but until she was found, Robert was the number one suspect in her disappearance—and possible murder.
Chapter Two
The parlor and front hall of the MacLeod townhouse was chaos the next morning. Valises and trunks sat stacked near the door, ready to be loaded into a wagon and taken down to the docks. Mari kept adding things she thought Fiona might need, although Abigail reminded her Dublin was not wilderness territory. Meanwhile, Fiona ran the gamut of emotions from anticipation and excitement to sadness and apprehension.
Shauna was experiencing her own conflicting emotions this morning. She knew she’d miss her younger sister, whom she had rescued from more scrapes growing up than she could remember. But Fiona was happy now. Her getting married left Shauna as the only single female in the family, and she realized she was nearing what the English ton called spinsterhood. However, Abigail, Mari and Jillian, had all married men they loved, and Shauna did not want to settle for less.
Her thoughts flitted briefly to Captain Henderson. He’d probably be returning to the States soon. Even if he were staying a bit, any silly hopes she’d been harbouring regarding him had been squelched last evening as she’d watched him move easily among London’s society. Shane had mentioned New Orleans’s French society to be as haughty as London’s, so maybe that was why Captain Henderson fit in, even though he was an American. She didn’t fit in, not that she cared to. Already, she missed the mountains and moors of Scotland. If she were going to be a spinster, she’d rather be there than here. She had her charity work at Edinburgh’s public home for the aging and infirm. And since Abigail was with child, Shauna planned to help work on the ledgers at Shane’s shipping line as well.
She would be just fine. She would.
Finally, the men took the baggage outside and relative quiet descended in the house as they drove off. They’d be back in an hour, but at least the women would have a little time for goodbyes. Mari poured tea for all of them as the housekeeper brought in
a tray of still-warm scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream.
Tears welled up in Fiona’s eyes. “This is the last time I’ll get to eat Mrs. Fields’s delicious scones.”
“Och, ’tis nae like ye will never come back here,” Shauna said. “Doona be sad on such a fine day. Ye are starting a new adventure.”
“I suppose ye are right.” Fiona wiped a tear away and then smiled. “And I will be with Kier. Nothing can be better than that.”
“There. Ye see? Look on the bright side.”
Her sister nodded and then frowned. “I hope I will make Kier a good wife.”
Mari laughed. “I do not think you need to worry about that. I have seen the looks the two of you exchange, not to mention you go up to your bedchamber quite early.”
Fiona shook her head. “I dinnae mean that.”
“Then what do you mean?” Abigail asked.
“I…well, ’tis something in Kier’s past.”
“What?” Mari asked.
Abigail frowned at her. “Fiona does not have to tell us.”
“Then why would she bring it up?” Mari turned to Fiona. “What are you worried about? It is quite clear that Kier dotes on you.”
“I just want to make sure he will always feel that way.”
Shauna leaned toward her. “Why would ye think otherwise, sister?”
Fiona hesitated and looked around the room as if to make sure the men had gone. She lowered her voice. “My husband was jilted by a woman…a Lady Litton. She ran off with most of his money as well. He told me ’twas why he found it hard to trust me at first. I doona want him to think I will be the same.”
Shauna took her hand. “Ye could never be like that. Ye are a MacLeod, honest and trustworthy. Kier kens that.”
“Of course he does,” Mari said.
“I agree,” Abigail added. “Anyone who has been around our men knows that as a fact. You MacLeod women are no different.”
Fiona brushed at an unshed tear that threatened to trickle down her face. “Ye are right.”
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