Love at first sight?
A ludicrous notion, that! But even as his mind rejected it, his heart didn’t. He stared blankly at the wall, hearing nothing but the sudden, tumultuous thundering of his pulse.
“God help me,” he said softly.
Why not? She was, after all . . . a pirate. A real one. His fantasy in the flesh.
“Dear God, help me!”
Out in the darkness, the tide swung the schooner toward him, and he had the unsettling
feeling that the little vessel was laughing.
The Pirate Queen stirred. Her arm jerked against his chest, then her fingers curled, childlike, in the soft hair there, pulling hard enough to make him gasp even as she raised herself up and her cheek fell against his shirt and the tight, brown bud of his nipple beneath.
“Damn you,” she murmured, and then, with pure fury, “bloody bastard!”
“I beg your pardon, madam—”
She raised her head and roared, “Majesty!”
“I beg your pardon— Majesty—but women don’t usually swoon when I kiss them. I wonder if I should take offense?”
“’Twas the Sight,” she muttered.
“The Sight,” he said flatly. Of course.
“What, you think I jest?” She pushed herself away from him, her eyes hard and angry. “I
have the Sight, the Irish gift to predict the future, to read meaning into Signs and Events, to . . .
to . . . sometimes even communicate with the Dead. At least I think they’re dead; I’ve never met these people before and they come to me in dreams and such. . . .”
“I see.”
“Do you?” She leaned back and stared up at him, then frowned as belatedly, she realized she was in his arms. “I doubt that you do, pirate,” she said sharply, and let her gaze rake him from chin to chest as though she could, just by that imperious look, command him to release Her Royal Person. “Suffice it to say that I have Visions, and the strong ones render me helpless, where I see the most vivid things.”
He would’ve given his precious jackboots in wager that two minutes ago she hadn’t seen a
damned thing.
“And what causes these . . . visions?” he asked, with the fond grin of a man who finds
himself thoroughly entranced by a woman. His gaze roved over the enchanting view of upthrust breasts beneath her gaping shirt and he had a sudden urge to explore them with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. . .
She caught the gaping fabric and yanked it up to the base of her throat. “A touch. A written word. A particular object. Spiced food and going to bed on a full stomach.”
“And . . . what did this, er, vision that you’ve just had tell you, hmm?”
“Stop leering, you vile pig.”
“What did it tell you?” he persisted.
She released her collar and stared hard at him, as though daring him to insult her by looking down Her Royal Shirt once more. “That you are my Gallant Knight, whether I want you to be or not, and that makes no sense at all because in the Spell I asked for something entirely different!”
Gray’s lashes lowered once more, and he made no pretense of looking anywhere but where
his manly appetites led him. She did not move, though her breathing grew heavy, and her body tensed with wariness. His hand came up, touched the closure of her shirt, and pulled the fabric there together, as though he was a chivalrous gentleman intent on preserving her modesty—when in fact his strategic mind was plotting the defeat of her haughty defenses, and his sole intent was merely to get his hand on her skin. Under the guise of closing her shirt, he now had only to let his fingers stray innocently to the base of her throat, her collarbone, and then, of course, to the dark valley between those lovely breasts. . .
He wondered just how far he’d get before she’d come to her senses and put a violent stop to his intentions. “And what, Majesty, did you ask for?”
“A noble and gallant sea officer. . . An honorable warrior.” Her mouth tightened. “A hero.”
“Well then, allow me to pretend,” he murmured, his fingers inches from those tempting
breasts.
“But you’re a pirate!”
“And a good one, too,” he added, grinning wolfishly and letting his fingertips slide beneath her shirt. He leaned forward, kissed her brow, felt the flames beginning to lick at his groin.
Control, Gray, he thought, don’t rush her. . .
Too late. Knocking aside his hand, she lunged to her feet. “Not so good after all,” she said, glaring at him. “My affections are one thing you won't be stealing.”
“A pity, that. A kiss then, Majesty, for your Gallant Knight?” he asked, looking up at her through his lashes in the manner that had devastated many a heart before hers. “Surely, you can grant me that. Or will such an act put you in irons once again?”
She stepped backward, her eyes flashing, frightened, one fist bunching the fabric at her
throat into a knot of strangulation. “Damn you, try it and I’ll topple your mainmast and shove it up your—”
“Madam,” he interrupted, allowing his eyes to widen with feigned affront, “although I am a sailor, I must take offense at your harsh language! Surely a lady of royal blood does not demean her person by indulging in such . . . coarseness. “
Her face turned a brilliant scarlet beneath the hard tan. Her mouth opened, shut, went hard with indignation. She glared down at him, her hands fisted at her sides. “I am queen here,” she said, recovering. “This is my island and I’ll conduct my speech in the manner I damn well wish!”
“Aye, I’m sure you will,” he returned, offhandedly. “But as this is my prison cell, I’ll thank you to talk like a lady while you’re a guest here”—he flashed another roguish smile—”though I beg of you, not to behave like one.”
“Guest! This is my island, and as such this prison is mine!”
“Very well, then. If it is yours, perhaps you should like to inhabit it? With me, of course.”
He winked suggestively. “We can always engage in some royal encounters in the palatial comfort of yon lousy pallet . . . It grows lonely, don’t you think?”
“Shut up!” she snarled. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to your sly innuendos!”
“Sly? Forgive me. I thought I was being quite direct. Allow me to steer a more . . . decided course.” He rose to his feet, towering over her, and, with a mocking sweep of his arm around the dark cell, the stone floor, the filthy mat said, “Perhaps you will join me for a bout of lusty coupling upon the forgiving comfort of—”
“Silence, damn you! You make yourself very clear indeed! And now I wish you to make
something else very clear, because if you do not, I’ll cut out your tongue and use it to stir my drink!”
Gray threw back his head in rich peals of hearty laughter—
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re in the Royal Navy?!”
—and abruptly froze.
“I asked you a question,” she said coldly, displaying a dagger that appeared in her hand as though by divine magic.
“How did you—”
Her hand lashed out, ripping apart the lacings at his throat and tearing the shirt down and apart with one angry jerk of her hand. There, proudly tattooed into the bronzed flesh of one shoulder, was the unmistakable anchor insignia of the Royal Navy, and beneath it, the name of his ship.
“You lied to me,” she hissed with savage menace. “You told me your ship was Triumphant.
I knew there was no such vessel in my waters! Your ship is Triton, the flagship of Admiral Falconer, the commander in chief of the West Indies Fleet!”
Gray’s heart missed a beat and, casually, he pulled the torn shirt up to cover the damning evidence. She must have discovered the tattoo while he’d lain senseless in her clutches. “So I was in the navy once,” he said offhandedly, leaning his weight on one hip and crossing his arms over his chest. “What of it? Most pirates have been, at one time or another.”
two years! Which means your departure from the navy must’ve been a damned recent one!”
“What, is the navy after your hide, Majesty?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” she snapped, thrusting the knife under his chin and holding it against his throat. “And I want to know why you left the Royal Navy!”
“What makes you think I’ve left it?”
She shoved herself away from him. “Look at you!” she cried, pointing to his pirate clothes, his earring, the eye patch around his neck.
“Well, I was . . . He paused; he could not trust her with the truth, of course, could not disclose anything for fear of what she could do with the information. Oh, he was in dangerous waters, indeed. “I was—”
“You were what? ’’
“I was on leave,” he finished, lamely.
She stared at him; he saw the corner of her mouth trembling, jerking, then splitting apart in a wide, raucous howl of pure laughter the likes of which old Morgan himself could never have matched for gusto and glee. “Liar!” she cried, flinging her hair over her shoulder. “Do you think to bluff me into letting you go? Ha! You’re a pirate, nothing more, nothing less. You can’t fool me with such a sorry claim as that! ”
“I do not bluff.”
“And I do not release my captives unless I have a damned good reason to do so, especially a deserter who might be worth something to me. That’s what you are, aren’t you? A deserter! Vile, dishonorable snake. I'm sure Admiral Falconer would pay dearly to have you back, and believe you me, I won’t think twice of collecting the highest price he’ll pay for you if only to see you swing from his flagship’s yardarm!”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He was rewarded with the smile of a barracuda. “Oh, I just might!”
Gray, desperate, raked a hand through his hair. “Very well then, belay that. You want the truth, I’ll ram it down your pretty throat! Yes, I jumped ship, and if the navy finds me here, my life is ruined. “
Humor flickered in her eyes. She studied him, trying to fathom a lie. Then she raised the knife, proceeded to trim a broken fingernail, and looking up, gestured with the savage little weapon for him to continue.
“You spin a fine tale, pirate. Too bad I don’t believe you for one moment. Explain to me
why someone like you even went into the navy.”
“You have the Sight,” he shot back. “You tell me.”
She swung the dagger toward his throat. “I’m warning you, pirate!”
Holding her gaze, Gray reached up, grabbed her wrist, and held the knife away from his
neck. “I entered the navy because of a lady, ” he said acidly.
“Of course.”
“Aye”—he grinned—”of course.”
“And?” she demanded, jerking her arm free.
He shrugged, smiling faintly at the distant memory. “Like all youths, I had a natural
curiosity about the female anatomy . . . in this case, the curiosity extended to Lord Rathfield’s daughter, who, I’m afraid, was as curious about my person as I was about hers. During one of our, er, voyages of exploration we fell afoul of her father, who took the matter to mine, and, well, here I am!”
She ignored the blitheness of his tone, the smile playing about his lips. “And how old were you?”
‘Twelve.” Again, that challenging, wolfish grin.
“A mere brat! Well this time your falling afoul of the wrong person is about to land you back in the navy! I may be a pirate, but I come from a decent and honorable family and I have no stomach for deserters. Nor do I have the stomach for men who insult me, force themselves upon me, and pretend to be something that doesn’t exist, a Gallant Knight!’’ She spat the words with contempt. “Tomorrow, I take you back to Admiral Falconer and Lord Nelson!”
He threw back his head in laughter. “Lord Nelson? Lady, you have the wrong ocean. Lord
Nelson is in the Mediterranean, not the Indies.”
“Lord Nelson is on his way to the Caribbean, pirate, and in a day or two you’ll see the sails of his fleet as it approaches Barbados!”
Gray couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d been hit by a falling block in the heat of
battle. Nelson? In the Caribbean? He stared at her, feeling the blood draining from his face in a rush of sick dread that left his skin cold and damp and prickly.
“L-Lord Nelson?”
“Aye, Lord Nelson! Where the hell have you been, eh? Trysting with a lady? Bah, you are a waste of my time, of my words, of my spell!” She tossed her head, sending her glorious tumble of hair flying over one shoulder. “Nelson is indeed on his way to the Indies, and heading for Barbados as we speak.”
“What?”
“Aye, Barbados. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard? What England has been dreading since
the war began has finally happened—a giant fleet of French and Spanish warships under the command of the French Vice-Admiral Pierre Villeneuve escaped Lord Nelson’s blockade of
Toulon, and he’s chased them clear across the Atlantic and into our waters in hopes of bringing them to battle here. I don’t know much about naval strategy—I am, after all, a mere pirate—but from what I've heard, if enough of Napoleon’s squadrons manage to escape the British blockade of Europe’s ports, and rendezvous in some far-off place—in this case, here in the Caribbean— the French will be able to sail back across the ocean as a mighty force, crush the Royal Navy’s defenses of the Channel—and invade and conquer England.”
Gray was staring at her, thunderstruck and speechless.
“So you really haven’t heard, have you? Well, the news is quite fresh; I only learned of it myself just this morning.” She grinned and folded her arms, her eyes taking on a distant, dreamy look. “Oh, what I wouldn't give to meet Lord Nelson . . . pride of the Royal Navy, the hero upon whom Britain has pinned her hopes of salvation from that monster, Napoleon Bonaparte. Nelson, the bravest, most famous, most decorated sea-officer in the world . . . I wonder if he'd give his autograph to someone like me?”
“What? ”
“Yes, pirate, he's on his way to Barbados, and he has the Mediterranean Fleet with him—
nine heavy ships-of-the-line, and three frigates. Oh, to meet Lord Nelson, who destroyed the French at the Nile—on the same day I ran away from home, mind you!—and smashed the Dutch
into submission at Copenhagen. When he catches up to Villeneuve, we’ll see a battle that the world will never forget.”
“Dear God,” Gray murmured. It was suddenly impossible to stand, and he leaned heavily
against the stone wall, trying to collect his thoughts. How could he not have known? The wind.
Damn it, the wind, blowing contrary as usual; that, and the pressing business he’d been attending to in Jamaica, as well.
The Pirate Queen narrowed her eyes. “What’s the matter, pirate?”
But Gray's mind was awhirl with the incredible news he had just heard.
“Damn you, I asked—”
“Nothing ails me!” he hurled back, and drove a shaky hand through his hair, even as cold
sweat broke out the length of his spine.
Nelson was in the Indies.
He swallowed once to moisten his throat, twice because he couldn’t, and then spilled out a string of curses so blue they made even the Pirate Queen raise a brow.
“Pirate?”
He had to get out of here!
“Don’t you up and die on me,” she commanded in her imperious tone. “The Sight said that
you are my Gallant Knight and I can’t have you dying when you just might be my only chance at happiness—”
He seized her shoulders, his eyes maniacal, and in a black fury spawned by dread and anger with himself, roared, “How do you know Nelson is in the Indies? He has no reason to be here!
Where did you come by such information and how th
e bloody hell do I know you’re telling the
—”
“Now, see here!” she stormed, drawing herself up with regal hauteur. “I am royalty, and you must first request permission to touch me—”
Gray grabbed her by the throat, cut his hand on her necklace of shark’s teeth, and cursing, hauled her up to within an inch of his face. “Answer me!”
Maeve looked up into that dark visage, those fathomless eyes just two inches from her own
—and smiled, for her pirate was turning out to be a dangerous man. She liked dangerous men.
Respected them. A thrill of excitement shot through her blood.
“I know everything,” she said haughtily, with a lofty turn of her chin. “I have the Sight, remember?”
“Answer me!”
He jerked her forward. Glittering gold eyes clashed with wicked indigo ones. She felt his knuckles against the pulse beating rapidly at her throat, the heat of his breath against her face, the merciless pressure of the sharks’ teeth driving into her nape. He glared down at her. She glared back. Then her gaze went, deliberately, to the angry slash of his lips, and with a preoccupied smile, she reached up to touch his mouth.
This time, there was no flash of insight, no Vision, nothing, and she felt vaguely disappointed. “No, pirate, you will answer me. You see, I want to know why you’re in such a damned hurry, all of a sudden, to leave. Do you fear the mighty Nelson as the French Admiral Villeneuve does?”
Gray released her abruptly and stood staring as she reached up to massage the spot where
the necklace had pricked her throat.
“What, do you think I lie?” she said prettily. “I have my own deeply personal reasons for hating the French. And as for Nelson . . . the French are not at Tobago, as he will be led to believe. What a pity, that the noble admiral will go chasing after wild geese when the real fowl are nesting at Martinique—”
“How do you know this?!” he thundered.
“You needn’t roar, pirate. I can hear you just fine. But since you are so keen on
knowing . . . Tavern talk. Swifter than the wind, it is, and far more dependable. I heard the news from some of my most-trusted crew members who heard the news on a neighboring island.”
“Bloody hell.“ Gray slammed a fist against the stone wall so hard he nearly broke every bone in his hand. The French were in the Caribbean. The zealous Nelson had come chasing after them. And he—despite the Pirate Queen’s charms, despite his vow to have her—had to get out of here. Duty came first, and the fate of his nation could very well rest upon whether or not he escaped her clutches! But could he tell her who he was? Could he trust her? For God’s sake, she was a pirate!
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