My Lady Pirate (10 page)

table beneath the panoramic stem windows, where a tray of refreshments waited. Colin was not hungry, but to be polite, he pulled out a chair and took a glass of port.

“So,” Nelson said, seating himself comfortably in a heavy, padded leather chair. He smiled and regarded Colin patiently. “What is it you wish to talk to me about, Captain?”

Nelson’s gray eyes were kind, his smile genuine, and Colin suddenly felt ashamed that he’d been dreading this interview. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come to you earlier about this, sir,” he said, lamely. “In fact, I feel rather foolish coming to you even now, but I thought you should know—”

“Nonsense, Colin,” Nelson said, leaning over to take a bit of fruit. “I would be much

aggrieved if you did
not
come to me with a problem. Pray, what troubles you?”

“It concerns the Pirate Queen, sir.”

Nelson could not prevent an involuntary glance at his newly repaired window. “Yes?”

“After she crashed in here last night, sir, I got to thinking. Though I had my suspicions, I didn’t want to say anything at the time—but now, in the light of day and after much thought, I have come to the conclusion that Maeve Merrick is . . . well, someone who is, uh . . .”

“Yes?” the Admiral prompted, kindly.

“Related to me.”

Lord Nelson raised a brow and leaned back in his chair.

“You see, sir,” Colin continued, obviously ill at ease, “my mother has a cousin named

Brendan Merrick. He emigrated to New England some thirty years ago, and made quite a name for himself in the American War—on
their
side, I’m sorry to say—with a little schooner named
Kestrel.”

Both of the admiral’s brows were raised now.
“Kestrel . . .
wasn’t that the name of the Pirate Queen’s vessel?”

“Yes, sir, it is. And
Merrick
is the surname of the Pirate Queen.”

“Aha!”

“At first, I didn’t put two and two together when she came to us last night,” Colin went on.

“It wasn’t until she mentioned the name of her schooner, sir, that I realized just who she is. By God—this is most embarrassing, sir. . .”

“No, no, do go on!” Nelson’s eyes were gleaming; obviously, he was getting far more

enjoyment out of this extraordinary tale than Colin was in telling it.

“Well, my mother and her cousin in America, Brendan, write to each other quite frequently, sir, and while I have never been to New England, and never met her relations over there, I do remember her saying something about how one of Brendan’s children, a girl, had some uncanny ability to predict the future and see visions of what was to come. My mother—she’s Irish, you know—called it the Sight.

“They had a lot of trouble with the girl,” Colin continued. “Apparently she was quite willful and uncontrollable, a real handful. Seven years ago, now, she fell in love with a French sailor her parents disapproved of, stole her father’s schooner, and off the two of them went. Her father chased her all the way to Florida, where he was told of a ship that wrecked in the Keys during a hurricane, a vessel that, according to those who’d seen it go down, answered
Kestrel’s
description. The girl hasn’t been seen or heard from since, and her family has long since given her up for dead.”

“By God! That
is
quite a tale, Captain Lord!”

“Yes. I’d forgotten the incident—at the time it happened, I was a young commander and,

being at sea, was not around my own family enough to have it more firmly ingrained on my

mind; indeed, I learned of the girl’s disappearance and death via letters from my parents. Thus, it did not immediately occur to me that the girl who ran away from home, and the woman who

crashed into this cabin last night, are one and the same.”

“So, the Pirate Queen is your cousin.”

The young captain looked at the freshly repaired window, and nodded with embarrassment.

“Yes sir,” he said slowly. “I’m afraid so.”

###

amidst pots of flowering hibiscus. He stood there for a moment, his hair hanging down his back and dripping water down his spine, his backside, his legs, while he watched the sun dance across the cool stone steps in lazy patterns of shadow and light. A bird sang in a nearby tree, and butterflies flitted over a little garden just beyond the lawn. Gray yawned, stretched, and smiled.

Beauty certainly existed in the most savage of places.

A thought that could certainly be applied to Her Royal Highness herself.

He grinned, wiped the sand from his feet, and stepped inside. The house was quiet, still—

and apparently, empty. Sea breezes wafted through open, louvered windows, playing with gauzy curtains and sweeping the rooms with the fresh scent of flowers, vegetation, and the ocean. Giltframed portraits hung upon the walls, and pots of bright red bougainvillea were set in the corners. The ceilings were high, the floors of polished hardwood, the furnishings rich and elegant and gleaming. Obviously, whoever had once lived here had been more than affluent, and he wondered what had happened to drive the former owner away; but then, ruined finances, fever, and a host of other misfortunes could well break a man.

Ah, well, it was not worth his speculation. Dismissing the thought, he continued on, and his growling stomach led him to the dining room. It was dominated by a mahogany table set with silver candelabra, a vase of flowers, and a bowl of fruit. His mouth watering, Gray sat down and proceeded to help himself.

Outside, the sun rose higher and the heat came with it.

He ate until he was full, happy, lazy, and content. Fruit juice was sticky between his fingers, and he licked each one in turn as he rose and, taking one last orange padded through the house, poking into a corner here, peeking into a room there, nonchalantly tossing the orange up and down as he explored. A grand, Turkish-carpeted stairway led to a second floor, and this he climbed with all the spirit of Captain Cook on an exploration into the unknown.

The unknown turned out to be a long, airy hall and a host of bedrooms.

Gray grinned, wolfishly, and began to push open each door. There was one room decorated

like a ship’s cabin, complete with swinging hammock . . . another, with the lace and frills and ribbon trimmings a young girl might favor ... another, in deep shades of gold and crimson, another with clothing thrown over chairs and chests, on and on until he came to the last, set far down the hall and apart from the others.

There was a toothless shark’s skull mounted on the door, and he knew without question that this room belonged to the Pirate Queen.

Still holding the orange in one hand, Gray pushed open the door and stepped inside.

It was an immense, airy room, dominated by a huge bed with four mahogany posts, over

which was draped a netting of gently swaying gauze. Thick pillows of dark purple satin were piled at the headboard, and a tasseled, cream-colored spread made a delicious expanse of

softness over the high mattress.

He pictured the Pirate Queen’s lithe body spread invitingly on that spread and felt a quick stab of heat in his loins.

He stepped forward, put the orange on a bedside table, and trailed his hand over a sea chest of lignum vitae. It was carved with figures of sharks, and upon closer examination, he realized that the shark theme was carried throughout the room; there were china sharks on the dresser, wooden sharks guarding the door, paintings of sharks on the wall; and yes, upon closer inspection, even the finials of that huge bed were carved with open-jawed sharks.

Gray stood for a moment, thinking. He reached out and moved his hand over a pillow,

feeling the silky satin catching in the calluses of his palm. He smiled, a slow, conniving smile.

His belly was full. The play of sunlight and sea breeze against his bare skin was making him drowsy. He heard a bird chirping just outside the open window, the soft hiss of the trades through the palms, the distant, soothing music of the sea.

What the hell.

Yawning, he tossed his clothes over a chair, peeled back those luxurious spreads, and, naked as the day he was born, promptly fell asleep in the Pirate Queen’s bed.

###

flying behind them. “Majesty, come quick! The prisoner’s escaped!”

Maeve had left her crew to see to
Kestrel
and was halfway up the beach when the two girls, who had run ahead, nearly collided with her. “What?”

“He’s gone! We just checked the storehouse and he’s gone!”

“Bloody hell.” Drawing her pistol, Maeve raced up the beach after them. Sure enough, their makeshift gaol was empty, the pirate gone. Only loose shackles and the pallet rested on the floor.

Fuming, she kicked at the old bedding, then leaned against the cold stone and passed the back of her hand over her brow.

“Now what, Majesty?” Aisling cried, tugging at her arm.

Maeve kneaded her aching brow. “He cannot have gone far,” she muttered, wishing for

nothing more than a dark room and an hour’s rest. Of all the times to have to face a problem like this. “There’s no way off this island, and if he’s fool enough to wander into the forest, then I should think him smart enough to come out.”

“What if he’s armed?”

“And dangerous?”

“And waiting to ambush us?”

Maeve gave a hoot of laughter and slammed out of the gaol. “For
his
sake, he’d better be
armed.
Now come on, we have work to do. When Nelson finds he’s been duped by this General What’s-his-name, he’s going to come hightailing it back here in a fine rage, looking for me, because
I
was right. And as for our traitor . . . he’ll show, have no fear of
that.
He no doubt fled because he knows I’m going to turn him in, but when his stomach gets hungry he’ll come slinking out of wherever he’s hiding, the blasted
coward.“
She spat the word with all the vileness she could command. “And then—”

“And then, Lord Nelson will annihilate
him! “
Sorcha cried.

“Aye, he’ll string him up from the
Victory’s
foreyard!”

“Can we stay and watch, Majesty? Can we?”

Young Aisling, echoing her sister, began jumping up and down in the hot sand. “Can we?

Can we? Can we?”

They didn’t notice the shadow that passed over Maeve’s face. “By God, you two make

Grace O’Malley look tame,” she muttered, referring to the notorious sixteenth-century Irish pirate queen from whom she was supposedly descended. “Go help the others secure the boat, and when you’re through we’ll wash down
Kestrel's
decks.”

“Majesty, you look pale. Are you all right?”

“My head is killing me,” she admitted, as indeed it had been since Lord Nelson’s lips had touched her hand and the Vision—God, she didn’t want to think of what it had revealed—had hit her with the force of a warship's broadside.

That coat will be the death of you.

She should never have spoken the thought aloud, for she’d had the most uncanny feeling

he’d been able to look inside her mind and see what she had seen; battle with the French at last.

Victory! And the little admiral, falling to his quarterdeck with a bullet in his spine, there to lie drowning, dying, in his own blood—

“Well, you go rest then, Majesty,” Aisling said, steering her toward the house. “We’ll see to
Kestrel
. Maybe tonight we can have a bonfire and a pig roast, and tap into the wine we stole from that Spaniard off Guadeloupe!”

“That
should draw our pirate out,” Sorcha sniffed.

Maeve, pressing her fingers to her throbbing temples, was in no mood to argue. “Very well, then. Maybe I
will
go lie down for a few minutes. . . The devil take this blasted sun, this heat—”

“What about the prisoner?” Sorcha called, as Maeve trudged up the beach.

“I’ll find him, damn his scurvy hide, and when I do. . .”

Leaving the rest unsaid, she walked toward the house, drooping like a flower in the heat and wanting nothing but the blessed sleep of oblivion.

C
hapter 8

Maeve pushed open the door to her room, tossed her scabbard into a chair, and saw the

pirate sprawled on her bed, fast asleep and naked as a newborn babe.

She froze.

Then, holding her breath, she slunk backward, flattened herself against the wall outside, and, shutting her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall, the image of that virile man stamped indelibly on her brain.

Fury at his insolence . . . shock at discovering him in her bed
—her
bed! . . . joy that he
hadn’t
fled like the coward she’d thought him to be . . . excitement at the sight of that handsome body. . .

And terror of the broken heart she knew he would give her.

Maeve’s first instinct was to kill him. Her second was to slip into bed with him and have her way with that splendid male body. She decided instead to creep back into the room and stare at him until she decided between the first and the second.

She found him awake and sitting up, reposing against the pillows heaped at the headboard

with his hands linked behind his head and his black hair in disarray across his brow, his arms, her pillows. His shoulders were dark against the lavender satin, his chest a formidable expanse of darkly tanned muscle. His manhood was bared to the world, his amused gaze challenged hers, and there wasn’t the least shred of modesty in those wicked indigo depths—only ripe humor and bold, blatant invitation.

“Care to drop anchor beside me, lass?” He grinned, wolfishly. “Morning is the fairest time for a tryst, you know.”

For the first time in her life Maeve Merrick was at a loss over what to say, do, think. She stared at him, unable to tear her eyes from that magnificent male body that lay so dark against the creamy sheets and violet pillows,
her
creamy sheets and
her
violet pillows— She grabbed up her cutlass and pointed it at him, accusingly. “You—” Her hand was