Pirates of Britannia Boxed Set Volume One: A Collection of Pirate Romance Tales

by Barbara Devlin

  Someone behind her cleared their throat, then coughed.

  “You best leave such talk to more private moments,” Rose croaked, her usually tanned face now pale and almost green. “As much as I enjoy a good bawdy tale, I would much rather it not be one I have witnessed myself…between my own cousins—blood or no.” Rising, Rose staggered a bit before finding her feet. “Have you never heard of closed doors and closed lips? My God, what if Saban—never mind,” she clipped as her gaze focused on something over Glynnis’s right shoulder.

  Saban was standing there, handsome, glaring, his hands on his hips.

  “Come, Robbie, ’tis time for you to come up for air,” Saban announced, using his chin to indicate up…outside of the sea cave, obviously choosing to ignore what he might have seen or heard. “Glynnis and Rose, you too. I think we all could use some sunlight.”

  Robbie grunted but said nothing as he lifted his body from the floor, lithe and agile, like a wolf in human clothing. Glynnis didn’t have time to move before Robbie’s hand was grasping hers tightly. She gazed down at where they were touching. She blinked, uncertain of what she was seeing… Was Robbie the Ravishing actually…holding her hand? She blinked again. Aye…he was. Warmth filled her and she smiled.

  His eyes dancing with green fire, Robbie didn’t return her smile. The sounds of men travelling down the tunnel toward the clifftops reminded her that they were on the move. Robbie pulled her into his chest and landed a kiss on her mouth.

  Breaking their kiss, he huffed, “We will finish this when we return…and we’re alone.”

  Delirious from the quick yet heated kiss, Glynnis only nodded.

  They followed the others through the maze of damp tunnels upward until they emerged behind a wall of thick bushes, creeping vines, and trees. Robbie pushed the wall aside to reveal a clearing, and right on the other side of that was a copse of trees. Glynnis blinked, seeing daylight for the first time in many hours, it was like a kiss from God on her skin. She moaned, raising her face to the sky.

  “Oh, I never thought I would miss the sun so much,” she murmured. When Robbie didn’t respond, she dropped her head and looked at him. He was staring at her, his eyes bright yet dark, like a light shining from the midst of the deepest darkest pool.

  She felt her belly flip even as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Aye, kiss me!

  “Rose,” Saban’s voice grated, twisting Glynnis’s moment of bliss. “Head home and wait for word. You need to rest…you look like you ate bad mutton.” Though his words were clipped, Glynnis could see the concern on the man’s face. Aye, he was an uncaring, heartless bastard with her and Robbie, but he seemed to actually care for the others.

  Rose, grumbling to herself, lifted her hand in acknowledgement but remained where she was standing, staring out over the ocean, stretching over the curve of the horizon.

  “Eh, Saban,” Brendan called. “We will go on ahead, see what trouble we can stir up.” Brendan turned and began making his way through the trees with an ever-silent Lucian in his wake.

  Their moment shattered by familial strife and tension, Glynnis pulled her hand from Robbie’s. Robbie took a step forward.

  “Nay, not you,” Saban said, placing a halting hand against Robbie’s chest. “You have someone to see…both of you. Daid is waiting for you.” His gaze moved to Glynnis. “Take this, follow it.” Saban pulled a slip of paper from his sheath and handed it to Robbie. “There are two mounts there”—he pointed to a large oak where two horses stood, saddled and grazing.

  Without another word, Saban turned and disappeared into the trees after Brendan and Lucian.

  “Damn that man, he always has to have the last word,” Glynnis grumbled and Robbie chuckled. Her heart leaping, she let Robbie lead her to the oak tree.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE SLIP OF paper Saban had given them contained simple directions northwest. They rode on a single horse—Robbie couldn’t bear letting Glynnis ride alone, not when he could make their journey a…pleasant one. The directions took them over stretches of open land bordering the sea, over craggy hills made of stone blanketed in verdant grass and wind-blown wildflowers.

  Finally, the reached their destination, sometime just after the sun passed the mid-point in the sky.

  Robbie waited for Glynnis to dismount before he turned and stared at the building before them. The roof was tiled rather than thatched, and the walls were stone, held together by mortar. He’d taken care to build this home; it would last for generations.

  The only door was thick oak, and it hung on iron hinges. The latch was also made of iron, but the sea air had begun to turn it a rust red.

  “I will wait here,” Glynnis said, attempting to tuck her hair behind her ear even as the wind pulled at it, as if playing a game with her. “It is best for you to face him alone… I have little desire to see him again.” He could tell from her tone she would rather eat a live sea urchin than speak with Ioan, but she understood his need to put the past to rest…to know the truth so that his father could find peace. So he could find peace.

  Robbie pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a soft kiss, one that spoke of gratitude. Though he’d only know her a short while…she’d become more to him that he could have ever fathomed. Just having her here with him, in that moment, gave him the strength he never knew he was missing. After another kiss, a deeper, lingering kiss, he released her and walked to the door. There was no need for words…she’d known his need of her; to come with him, to be there for him. And it was far more precious than any gold or jewel he could ever steal in his life.

  Raising his hand, he rapped his knuckles against the door twice. He held his breath.

  “Come,” a deep voice called from within. Robbie pressed the latch and pushed the door open. The hinges squeaked but moved easily. The interior of the cottage was dimmer than the full sun outside, but once his eyes adjusted, he could see well enough.

  His heart pounding, he stepped through the doorway, ducking his head to avoid missing the low jamb. Inside, he let out a slow breath, letting his gaze wander. The cottage was a single room, with a low cot along the left wall, a table and two chairs—well-made and somewhat delicate in appearance—along the right wall, and a large hearth complete with spit and pot hook, was set into the back wall. There was a man seated before the hearth, his wide shoulders slumped, his head ducked as if to hide his face.

  “I am Robbie…Rees.” Speaking the name aloud, especially in relation to himself, was strange. He’d been a Bowlin all his life, had thought of himself as Ravishing Robbie Bowlin for most of his adult life, so now, to be Ravishing Robbie Rees…

  Ravishing Rees…the perfect pirate moniker. Why that thought emerged, Robbie had no time to wonder about, because the man straightened and turned to look over his shoulder at him.

  His eyes were a burning green, so like Robbie’s own, that it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand erect. If he’d had any doubt of the truth of his heritage, he didn’t now.

  “I was told you would be coming,” the man said, his voice laden with resignation…and a drop of weariness.

  As Robbie watched, the haggard man rose from beside the hearth, his rugged, sharp-angled face cast in dancing shadows from the low burning fire.

  A gasp caught his attention, and his own gaze clashed with that of the man standing, staring at Robbie as if he’d seen a specter there before him.

  “You have the look of her… Ilone… About the lips and nose. But…” He stopped, took a slow, shuddering breath. “You have the eyes and coloring of a Rees.”

  Robbie couldn’t completely digest what the man said before the man, Ioan, took a step closer, then another, until he was just two feet from him. His face, though lined with age and care, was the face of a man who reminded him of his own father.

  The truth was just feet away… He could no longer ignore what was so obvious.

  “But how?” Robbie asked, his voice hollow. “If my grandmother was your wife, why did she go to Bowlin? Why
was I denied my heritage for so long?”

  What heritage? This lonely cottage by the Irish Sea? A smuggler’s den in a sea cave? The name…Rees? What did it matter what material thing came with the right to be called Rees? For the first time in his life, he felt…complete. And it was a revelation.

  Ioan slowly made his way to a large sea chest which sat at the end of his cot. With a groan, he knelt and opened the chest. It squeaked as though it hadn’t been opened since it last touched the boards of a ship. Ioan shifted a few pieces of clothing and withdrew what was beneath them: a small ornate, dark wood box. The intricate scrollwork on the lid made it look almost like a lady’s jewelry box—which Robbie had seen and stolen plenty enough in his life. But why would a once feared and dastardly smuggler and pirate own a lady’s jewelry box?

  With another groan, the man stood up, clutching the box to his chest as if life could be found inside it. Opening the lid, Ioan pulled a tattered, worn, yellow scrap of parchment from the box. He stared down at it, his gaze a thousand leagues away.

  “She wrote this…and I kept it. I do not know why I kept it. It only tore out my heart every time I read it. But…it was the only thing of her I had left.”

  Sighing, he turned and held the parchment out to Robbie. “Take it. Read it.”

  Robbie took the paper; it felt like well-worn leather. Oft held and handled. Carefully, he unfolded it then peered down at the faded words written with a delicate hand.

  Ioan,

  I have borne a son. I have named him Ioan, after the man I loved…and lost. He is the very image of you. But he will not be you. I will raise him to honor life and truth, and to be the man I thought you were when we wed. But you are no longer the man you once were. You are now consumed with the love of money and danger. The night you killed your own father was the night I knew the man you were had been killed alongside him.

  For the benefit of our son, I have remarried, and though you and I are still bound by the bonds of the church, I had to tell my new protector that you had died. Our son will carry his name, as will I. He will provide a home for us, all we could ever need, and I am thankful for that.

  I love you… I will always love you. But I could not remain with you. I hope you understand. I had to leave to protect our child from the life you would press upon him. I write to tell you of him in the hopes that one day, if by God’s grace you repent of all the wrong you have done, we will all be reunited in Heaven.

  – Lady Ilone Bowlin, Countess of Heathcombe

  His grandmother…

  “If you had this letter, why did you not look for her? Why did you not come for my father, give him your name and his birthright?” Robbie couldn’t understand how a father could just let his wife and son fall through his grasp. It was like allowing the most precious gems to be stolen away by a lesser thief. “Surely you could have told her you renounced your ways and wanted her back.”

  Ioan’s eyes flashed, his nostrils flaring. “Do you think me a fool, boy? Do you not think I wanted that? To have my beloved back, to hold my son? To grow the family I had wanted from the very beginning?”

  Robbie could hear the dejection…the agony in Ioan’s voice.

  “You found her, didn’t you?” Robbie asked, his heart aching for the man before him.

  Ioan’s shoulders slumped. He sighed, nodding. “Aye, I found them.”

  “But you did not take them back with you.” Slowly, realization flicked on in his thoughts. “You loved her too much to make her leave the comfort she’d found to come back to…”

  “Be a blasted Rees,” his grandfather finished. Suddenly, Robbie understood.

  Being a Rees may not have been a choice, but Ilone wanted it to be for her son. She wanted him to be able to choose another life, one where he could live without the fear of being captured or hanged.

  His father had chosen to be a knight—a great knight, one of the fierce and renown Homme du Sang—but that life crumbled to pieces… Because he’d chosen to chase the name of the man he thought had ruined his chance at being something more than a fatherless son.

  Oh father… If you had but known the truth…

  “I did kill him, you know,” Ioan said, turning Robbie’s thoughts back to him.

  “Who?”

  “My father.”

  A ripple of uneasiness collided with the need to know more. “Why?”

  Ioan settled onto the edge of the bed, he legs practically falling out from beneath him. What a great weight he must carry…

  “He had something I wanted,” he answered matter-of-factly. “He was the commander of a fleet of sloops. He wanted to use them to plunder the English ships carrying goods to France and Spain, but…”

  “You wanted something more?”

  Ioan nodded, sadly. “Aye. I wanted more than just to plunder and bathe in the gold of other men. I wanted my own gold. I wanted to steal the goods, sell them, and create a paradise of my own making, right here in Port Eynon Bay. It would rival Tortuga—we could have been the kings of the Irish Sea, makers of our own destinies…”

  “So what happened?” Robbie asked, staring down at the man who wore neither gold or gems, but was wearing a threadbare tunic over well-worn leather breeches. He’d gone from king to commoner. But why? How?

  “Ilone happened.”

  Shocked at the answer, Robbie couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “Grandmother?”

  “Aye…she saw what I had done, was disgusted by it and my quest for power… She begged me to reconsider, to help her build a true home for her and the babe she carried.” He chuckled mirthlessly, raising his arms. “I built this cottage for her. We were to begin our lives together here… But… It was not enough for her. She wanted the security, the confidence of knowing that our child would not grow up to be greedy and terrible enough to kill his own father.”

  “So she fled,” Robbie interjected.

  Ioan sighed. “Aye.”

  “And you let her.”

  “Aye.”

  “But what of your kingdom of smugglers and pirates? What of the Ganwyd o’r Mor?

  “After she left, I realized that…without my queen, I was nothing more than a pauper playing at nobility. Certainly, I raided, plundering ships and smuggling the goods, but there was no joy in it for me any longer. Soon, I gave the mantle of brenin to my eldest nephew, Saban.”

  “And so he leads in your stead.”

  “As well as he can with what little is left.”

  The scrape of the door behind him, reminded him that he hadn’t ventured to this cottage alone, but before he could turn and acknowledge Glynnis, Ioan stiffened, his face growing pale.

  “Glynnis,” Ioan murmured, clearly taken aback by seeing her there.

  Robbie turned to see Glynnis standing in the doorway, her hair whipping in the wind, and her face expressionless. As with the other Rees, his woman certainly had unresolved enmity with the patriarch.

  “Ioan,” Glynnis said curtly.

  “Please, come in, have a seat. Warm yourself.” Ioan indicated the seat by the fire, the one he’d vacated, but Glynnis’s gaze never left Ioan’s face.

  “I promise you, I will not bite.” Ioan offered a lopsided, clumsy smile, almost as if he’d forgotten how.

  Glynnis huffed, her adorable nose thrusting into the air most defiantly, before she stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind her.

  Chapter Twelve

  GLYNNIS COULDN’T TAKE her eyes of the shell of a man before her. Lord, but the years had not been kind to the great Ioan Rees, Brenin of the Ganwyd o’r Mor. The father of her late husband…a man she would much rather forget. But how? How did one go about forgetting such betrayal? Not only had he promised faithfulness and to cherish her for always, he’d promised her a life of leisure and comfort. None of those promises meant a thing to him. Lying was just as easy to William as pissing. Not less than a week after speaking their vows in the little chapel in Port Eynon, he’d found himself in the bed of another man’s wife. And
had been killed.

  “You are just as beautiful as you ever were, Glynnis. I am glad to see you well,” Ioan murmured, his eye glowing.

  She huffed. “No thanks to your brood of degenerates,” she snapped, then immediately regretted it. Her gaze flicked to Robbie, his long, black hair, his flashing green eyes. He was a Rees…just like them. But not like them.

  Memories of last night, lying beside him, beneath him, her body singing with the pleasure he gave. His hands, gentle yet skilled at strumming her, playing her heart and soul like a lyre. But it wasn’t just the pleasure he gave…it was the way he smiled at her—and not his cocky, wicked smile—the smile of a man who actually…cared. He’d held her close to him, running his fingers along her arms, lending her his strength…his warmth. Aye, they’d given each other pleasure—pleasure greater than William had ever given her—but beneath it all there was something…precious. Nay, Robbie Rees wasn’t like the other Reeses. He was a far better man than any of them could ever hope to be.

  Swallowing down the burn of emotion, Glynnis crossed her arms and planted her feet, staunchly refusing to step one foot further into the devil’s den…though tired and worn he appeared, he was still a wicked and dangerous man.

  A lamb looks more dangerous than he does, her mind muttered.

  “I am sorry,” Ioan declared and Glynnis felt the air whoosh from her body.

  Stunned wasn’t a strong enough word. She couldn’t have possibly heard him correctly.

  “I see I have surprised you,” he spoke again, and Glynnis nodded, not trusting her voice to not tremble. Ioan sighed then offered a tremulous grin. “I mean it. I am sorry.”

  “For what?” She pushed the words past the constriction in her throat.

  “For William.”

  She snorted. “What about him?”

  From the corner of her eye, Glynnis could see Robbie stiffen, his shoulders straightening. If she dared to look him in the eye now, what would she see?