Lady Pirate (27 page)

Valoree released a breath and sank back into her seat, a frown tugging at her lips. Meg was right, at least about her manners. She did know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, and how to dine and behave in company. She may have been forced into the role of cabin boy while they had worked to remake their lost fortune, but Jeremy had seen to it that she knew how to behave. There were no great dining halls on the
Valor
for all of them to eat together, so the men ate in shifts. But Jeremy and she had had their meals in his cabin, where he had made sure she retained her proper eating habits, and had insisted they hold polite conversations. He had also insisted on her using proper English all the time, even around the crew—something the other men had teased and harassed her for at first.

Aye, she had been behaving badly mostly on purpose, but she had told herself it was for the benefit of both herself and the men. They would have grown bored in no time living the quiet life in the country, she'd assured herself. Then they would pine for their lives of privateering, but it would be too late. In truth, Valoree had resented the men's voting to retire. She had been actually relieved when Whister had said she
had to be married and produce an heir. Then she had thought that they would give up this foolishness and return to the sea. But they had voted she should marry. So aye, mayhap she had planned to behave badly in the hopes of frightening off suitors, but she hadn't really had to. Not much, anyway. Fate had stepped in, tossing those calamities with the face whitener and fucus at her, and things had seemed to be going her way without her aid until Thurborne had stepped in to put a fly in her pie. She couldn't turn him down without risking the men's getting irate and refusing to follow her. It wasn't as if he were an old troll or something. So her plans had changed again, and she had decided she must find a replacement were she to refuse him. Beecham had seemed the one least likely to cause her problems.

But the rest of what Meg said, that bit about being afraid to love lest she get hurt, and her not really caring for the men or she would wish them out of the risky business of pirating—well, surely that was not true? She was no coward. Besides, she did care for the crew.

Valoree grimaced as she realized she could not even think the word
love
in regard to her own feelings. And she silently acknowledged that she had been selfish. The men wished to retire. She should wish to see them safely out of the business. And she did, but…where would that leave her?

Her gaze moved to the signet ring on her hand. Jeremy had pressed it into her palm as he had died, and she had worn it ever since. It had been too large, of course, but string wrapped around the base of her finger had made it stay on. It had always meant a great deal to her, even more than the land it represented. It was all she really had left of her family—that ring and the men who had survived when Jeremy had died. That was what she had always thought. She'd refused to include Ainsley, the home that had witnessed the death
of both parents—it caused her too much pain. And that was when Valoree realized that Meg was right.

She had closed off her heart when Jeremy had died, afraid to love and lose. She had refused to marry Daniel, not because he was too strong or would not let her lead, but because she liked, admired, respected, and maybe even loved him a little already. And because she knew that she could love him wholeheartedly if given the chance. But that would mean risking the pain of loss if anything happened to him, and that possibility frightened her more than losing her own life in battle ever had.

She had been behaving like an idiot and a coward, and it was high time she cut that out. Standing, she moved to the chest that held the gowns she had ordered in London and began to sort through them. She would wear gowns. She would not swear. She would not drink. She would be the best lady she knew how to be, and she would charm the stockings off of Daniel. This time, when he asked, she would marry him in a trice. Then they could start making that baby she needed to reclaim Ainsley.

 

Thurborne was not in the mood to be charmed. Valoree came to that conclusion after wasting two straight weeks on the effort. She didn't charm anything off him, let alone his stockings. She couldn't, since he would not even talk to her. Valoree worked hard at the effort, trying everything she could think of. She tried sweet smiles. She tried polite conversations. She tried teasing him for being so grumpy. In desperation, she even lowered her neckline until it was beyond decent, but all she got from him on each attempt was a cool-eyed look and a grunt. He wasn't charmed at all. And Valoree, who had been incredibly patient, in her own opinion, had finally had enough. It was time to take action. With that intent, she had called Henry to her
cabin. Now she faced him across her desk and said the only thing she could think of to save the situation: “Get him drunk.”

“What?” Henry gaped at her.

“You heard me. Get him drunk.”

Henry hesitated. “But—”

“Henry, we do not have time for any more playing about. There are barely seven months for me to get with child. I must get moving on the matter, and to preserve Thurborne, he must marry me. So get him drunk. We shall hold the ceremony and I shall consummate the marriage.”

“You'll be needing a little help from him with that task, Captain, girl,” Henry mentioned a little tentatively. “And who will marry the two of you?”

“You will have to go ashore and bring back a minister.”

“Go ashore where?” the quartermaster asked. “We have not reached land yet.”

“We will reach Port Royale by nightfall,” Valoree told him calmly.

“We made good time,” he murmured with surprise, but knew her sense of these things. She shrugged.

“Aye. One or two storms and only a couple days of lee wind. A good strong wind the rest of the time more than made up for it.” She sighed. “Get him started on the drink, Henry. I want him well sotted when we reach Port Royale and you fetch the minister back.”

 

Less than twenty-four hours later, Valoree watched the men row back toward the ship with a frown. They had been preparing a “love nest,” as they insisted on calling it, on a nice secluded stretch of shore for her and Daniel. Calling it a battle arena probably would have been closer to the truth, she thought derisively as she watched the small boat reach the
Valor
and the two men begin to clamber up the rope ladder. She sus
pected Daniel was not going to be pleased this morning when he learned that they were married. Why should he be? Nothing else she had planned had gone her way.

Oh, aye, Henry had done as she had requested and gotten Daniel thoroughly drunk the day before. He had challenged him to a drinking game, then cheated his pirate head off. By the time they had reached Port Royale, Daniel hadn't even been able to stand on his own, let alone see straight, and forget about any ability he might have had to think.

The men had had to prop him up for the ceremony, which had made the minister, at first, refuse to perform it. It had taken a lot of talking, gold, and even threats to get the holy man Henry had found and fetched to cooperate. Especially as Daniel had obviously hardly known where he was. Still, he had kept raving on about how she was “my Valoree” and her passion was “soooo hot.” Apparently the drink had made him forget all about his irritation over her trying to hang him, and this helped reassure the priest.

Unfortunately the moment the ceremony was over, and the minister had walked away, Daniel had collapsed to the deck in an unconscious, sodden heap. One-Eye and Skully had immediately carried him down to her cabin and laid him out on her small cot. There, Valoree had attempted to consummate their marriage, only to learn—firsthand—what Henry had meant by her needing Daniel's cooperation to accomplish it. The man had lain flat on his back, snoring away as she had undressed him, then continued to lie there.
All
of him had just lain there.

Consummation had been impossible. She had spent the night dozing in her chair, then got up this morning to give orders. She supposed this latest plan had come to her in a dream, for she didn't recall thinking it out. But whatever the case, she had ordered the men to set sail around the island until they reached a secluded
cove she recalled, then instructed Henry to sit with Daniel and wait for him to wake up. She had told the man that the moment he did, he was to pour some of that sleeping potion—the one they had used to get her and Daniel aboard this ship—down his throat. But not too much. She wanted him out only long enough to set her plan in motion.

Leaving him to it, she had gone off to converse with Petey about what she wanted him to prepare for this plan, then had had One-Eye, Bull, and No-Nose help her take several things ashore. The last trip to the cove had been to take the food she had had Petey prepare, and the unconscious Daniel. After arranging him as she had ordered, the men had piled back into the dinghy and shoved off, hurrying back to the ship. They were not to return until dusk the next night—unless it rained or there was a problem.

Now she just had to wait for Daniel to wake up. Which shouldn't really be long. Henry had assured her he hadn't given him much of the potion, and he had already shown signs of stirring when Bull had carried him ashore.

A voluble curse from the trees behind her a moment later proved her thought correct. It was time to begin. Resigned to the battle ahead, Valoree turned and started up the sand to the trees.

Daniel took another look at his bound hands and cursed again. What the hell had happened? The last thing he remembered was waking up with a terrible hangover from the drinking game he had obviously lost, and Henry nursing some foul-tasting liquid down his throat. Then he'd woke-up here?

Where was here, exactly? he wondered a bit hazily. His first thought was that he had been staked out in the sand and left to drown. But he wasn't on sand really, and there was no sign of water. Though he
was
staked out. Two good-sized posts had been driven into the sand on either side of, and up a little from, his head, just off the carpet of silky soft cloth he lay on. His hands had been bound to them. Similar posts at the other end held his feet spread-eagled.

“Would you like a drink?”

Daniel glanced down sharply to the woman now standing between his bound feet as she eyed him warily. He glared at her for a moment, then asked between clenched teeth, “What exactly are you up to now? Hanging me was not good enough, so you have decided to stake me out in the sun and let me die a long, slow death from thirst?”

He realized how stupid that sounded the moment the words finished leaving his mouth, considering that she had just asked him if he wished a drink, but he could do little to take them back now.

“I believe you have to be left out in the sun for that,” Valoree asserted calmly. She moved to pick up a bottle
that had been laid out on a barrel a short distance away. There was also bread, cheese, and what smelled like some sort of roasted chicken there as well, he noted with interest. He watched her pour a glass of wine half-full, pick up a spoon, and move toward him. “As you can see, I made sure they put you in the shade.”

Daniel glanced around briefly to see that he was staked out under a group of nice shady trees. He turned toward her again as she knelt on the silky material beside him. “Oh,” he said. “So how do you plan to kill me?”

Pausing, she met his gaze briefly and frowned. “I did not have you brought here to be killed,” she snapped, and he gave her a morose smile.

“Well, do forgive me for slighting you by thinking so. It was not that long ago that you were ordering me hanged from the crow's nest.”

Valoree released a sigh, then shrugged. “I was not happy about it. But you
are
the king's spy, and I
did
vow to protect my men as captain. I had little choice but to see to that to the best of my abilities.”

Daniel felt himself soften somewhat, then frowned. It was as simple as that to her. She had a responsibility as captain to see to the safety of her crew. He supposed he could understand that. He had been in similar situations and had to make comparable decisions. He had even understood that when Henry had explained it to him, when Meg had explained it to him, and One-Eye, Skully, No-Nose…Hell, the whole crew had had a go at him about it over the past month, each of them ending their little chat with: “We'll just keep this little talk betwixt us two, hmmm? No need for the captain to know 'bout it. She'd think I was fussing in her business.”

Aye, Daniel understood her decision, and he wasn't really angry about it either, though he couldn't have said the same right afterward. Once his temper had
cooled a bit, he had realized that he was half to blame for the fiasco himself. If he had been honest from the outset and simply cleared up the mess over her brother and Back-from-the-Dead Red from the beginning, none of it might have happened. But he'd be damned if that meant he was going to let her get away with marrying him to save his life. Not that he didn't want to marry her, but who the hell needed that? He did not need her throwing it in his face every time they had a disagreement over the next fifty or sixty years:
I only married you to save your life. I should have let you swing!

Nay.
If they married it would be because she had finally admitted her desire to do so, not under the excuse of saving his hide. The thing of it was, he was pretty damn sure she did want to marry him. Or at least that she wanted to sleep with him. But he wanted to hear her say it. If she would just say it, he would become the most agreeable, most cooperative of men.

A sigh of impatience from her drew his head around as she asked, “Do you want some of this or not?”

Daniel eyed the liquid suspiciously. He was thirsty, but…“Is it poison?” he asked, his gaze narrowing at the spoonful of wine she had poured out of the glass and was moving toward his lips.

Rolling her eyes, she lifted the spoon to her mouth and swallowed its golden contents.

“There. See? No poison. Now do you want some?”

Face expressionless, he nodded, and she quickly poured out another spoonful and tipped it into his mouth when he opened it. Then she fed him another spoonful, and another. It was a perfectly ridiculous way to drink, and most unsatisfactory. He felt like a child, and his thirst required a full glass or two poured down his throat to quench it, not these little trickles of the stuff.

“If I am not here to be killed, why am I tied down?”
he asked after several spoonfuls, when his frustration got the better of him.

Valoree hesitated, then admitted, “Because Henry was worried about how you would take the news I have to impart. He was unwilling to leave us here without a guard unless you were tied down.”

His eyes narrowed at once at that. “What news? And why could you not impart it on the ship?”

“Oh, I could have,” she assured him quickly, then added, “but I wanted privacy for the other part.”

“The other part?”

“Aye.”

“What other part?”

“The part that comes after the news,” she said evasively.

Daniel shifted impatiently, tugging at his bonds in frustration. “Well, what bloody news?”

She hesitated uncertainly, then asked, “Would you not like some more wine first?” When his only response was to glare at her angrily, she shifted unhappily and asked, “Do you not remember anything about last night?”

Daniel blinked at the question. He was rather fuzzy on that subject. It was all a sort of pink haze. Pink and fuzzy. “What happened?”

“We got married.”

He immediately began to struggle as if she had stuck her blade in his arse, his hands and feet pulling furiously at the ropes that bound him, curses rolling off his tongue in fury. He snarled as Valoree eased warily away from him to watch from a safe distance. After a few moments of fruitless struggle, Daniel stopped and glared at her. Panting, he raged, “The hell we were!”

Valoree moved silently to a sack beside the barrel, withdrew a piece of paper, and returned to hold it before his face. It was a marital contract, and his signa
ture was right there on it beside hers, albeit a little sloppy.

“Henry fetched a minister from Port Royale, and Jasper took care of obtaining the special license. You said ‘I do' and signed. We are married.”

Daniel stared at the paper for the longest time, then glanced toward her smugly. “I will have it annulled.”

Sighing, she looked away from him briefly, then back hopefully. “Would you like more wine?”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head firmly. “I'll not touch another drop of anything but water until I've had this marriage annulled.”

Sighing, she walked back to replace the piece of paper in its sack, muttering, “I guess you leave me no choice, then.”

“What? You are giving up?” he asked with disbelief and not a little disappointment. Had he been wrong? Did he mean so little to her? Where was his lady pirate? Where was her fight?

Finished putting the license away, she straightened and turned to calmly move back toward him. “Nay. I am not giving up. I am simply moving on to accomplishing the task myself.”

“What task?” he asked suspiciously. Her gaze dropped at once to the area south of his waist and north of his knees.

“A little raping and pillaging.”

Daniel's jaw dropped in amazement; then an incredulous grin stole across his face. “And how do you plan to accomplish that without my cooperation?”

Her gaze still on his nether regions, she arched an eyebrow, her relief showing as she commented, “It appears I may have some cooperation with that task. Just enough to see the deed done, no doubt.”

Daniel didn't have to glance down to understand her meaning. The very thought of the raping and pillaging she had mentioned had made his one-eyed soldier de
cide to stand at attention—and it certainly was doing that. It was standing so straight and eager, she could probably fly her Jolly Roger from the damn thing. Since there was no sense in arguing the point, he decided to simply lie there and see how things developed. Until she picked up a knife from the barrel and moved toward him.

“What are you planning to do with that?” he asked warily.

“Well,” she mused calmly, “it seems to me I cannot undress you all tied up as you are.”

His eyebrows rose as she moved down by his feet, then knelt between them. “So you are going to let me go?”

“Not quite,” she said cheerfully, then slid the knife between his leg and knee breeches and began to slice upward. She was most efficient; were he a fish, he would consider himself filleted, he thought grimly as his knee breeches dropped away from one leg. Straightening, she performed the action again on his other leg just as quickly. Then she shifted further upward to sit between his spread thighs, making two more slices, each one neatly cutting the cloth from where her last slicing motion had left off, up to and through the waist of his breeches. Leaving the cloth lying over him, she then tossed the knife aside and straightened to stand consideringly between his feet.

Daniel swallowed and waited. He supposed he had expected her to lift her skirts and drop to mount him in just as quick and efficient a manner as she had sliced his clothes away. She didn't. Instead, she reached out suddenly and began to undo her bodice, watching his face as she did. Once done, she pulled the garment off first one shoulder, then the other and let it drop between his legs. Her overskirt followed, then the kirtle, and then her partlet. Daniel licked his lips as her corset and petticoats slipped away next. She was left in a
chemise so thin that through it, he could see the triangular shadow between her legs and the round darkness that were the areolae of her breasts.

Her gaze slid back to his manhood now, a slow smile spreading on her lips. Daniel didn't have to look down to see what caused that smile. He had been unable to do anything but grit his teeth and bear it as he had grown stiffer with each removed item, his erection growing and lifting the loose cloth of his breeches away from his flesh.

Winking at him, she bent slowly and grasped the hem of her chemise, drawing it slowly upward. It was only then that Daniel realized she had forsworn hose and garters, and was barefoot. Probably a smart thing to do to negotiate the sand here, he thought distractedly as she slowly straightened, uncovering her calves, her knees, her thighs.

Daniel swallowed audibly as she revealed the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs. It was as bright as red as the hair on her head. His gaze paused there briefly, losing several of her movements, but he caught up as she lifted the gown past her breasts, and his eyes widened. They were swollen and full, with nipples that at the moment were tightly erect and a cinnamon-brown.

Daniel had to bite his lip to keep from groaning aloud at that. Her little striptease had excited her as much as it had him, it seemed. She was definitely no shrinking violet. Tossing the chemise to join the small pile of clothes to the side of where he lay, Valoree stepped over his thigh to kneel beside his chest. She bent over him then, her hair falling forward like a curtain to hide her face from view as she began to undo the fastenings of his shirt.

“Untie me.” Daniel's voice was harsh from the strain of watching, silent and unmoving, but she ignored him, undoing the last of the buttons. She pushed
the cloth of his white shirt open with a sigh, her hands running over his chest as she did, her hair tickling across his belly, which tightened at once in response. She slid one hand down over his stomach to sweep the remains of his breeches out of the way, her hand brushing across his hot flesh as she did, making him close his eyes in exquisite pleasure.
Damn!
She had barely touched him and his body was already threatening to explode. It was the anticipation. He knew bloody well that she would not untie him. That she would mount him with that damned sexy smile of hers, and ride him until he—

His eyes popped open as she trailed kisses down his chest and across his stomach. “What are you doing?” He gasped in horrified wonder as she pressed the little kisses to his hip, then shifted between his legs.

“Sometimes,” she murmured against the flesh of his thigh, “when the men go ashore, if they are feeling generous, they have been known to send back a prostitute or two for the men left behind,” she told him, her hand closing around his manhood and squeezing curiously. “They are not supposed to and risk a whipping for doing so, but a half a dozen times or so over the years, I have come across the men engaged in various acts with these women. Twice the women were on their knees—”

“Oh, God!” Daniel gasped as she rose up slightly, her breath brushing against the excruciatingly sensitive tip of his manhood as she spoke.

Pausing, she grinned at him slightly and announced, “You are getting bigger still. I did not think you could.”

“Ohhh, God!” Daniel groaned as her mouth closed over his tip and she suckled at him like a babe at its mother's breast. It was rather obvious that she didn't have a clue what she was doing. She was experimenting with him like a child with a toy. She sucked, then
she licked, then she nipped, and it didn't matter that she had no idea what she was doing, for the very fact that she was doing it—and the view he had of her eyes and face as he looked down his body at her—was driving him insane.