

The Sea Rose

By Amylynn Bright

Published by Amylynn Bright at Smashwords

Copyright by 2013 Amy Bright

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Jaycee DeLorenzo/jayceedelorenzo.com/sweetnspicy/

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

About the Author

Dedication

For Pop ~Who taught me how to tell stories and is possibly the best story teller I've ever known even if I know that ninety percent of 'em are complete BS. I love you.

And oddly, Tommy Lee Jones who played one of my favorite movie pirates.

Chapter One

July 25, 1718

Another huge wave crashed into the ship sending Roselyn careening to the other side of the cramped cabin. The captain had ordered the lamps extinguished the minute the waves became robust and the rain began to pound against the windows in earnest. Now in the pitch black night, everything that hadn't been bolted or tied down was flying around the room. Including Roselyn.

The prow of the ship dove into the trough of another wave. Her trunk slid across the planks of the floor and slammed into her back, knocking the wind from her lungs. The lady's maid who'd accompanied her on this voyage had disappeared to her own quarters early in the storm, wanting to be sick in private. Before the storm became truly ferocious, the captain of the British merchant vessel had come to her cabin several times to inquire into her welfare. Though she hadn't seen him in several hours now, she could just faintly make him out along with the rest of the crew shouting orders to each other over the roar of the wind and sea.

Roselyn struggled to her feet, working desperately to gain the bed before another wave hit. If she could manage to stay on top of the bunk she might not be so pummeled by the objects careening around on the floor. She clutched at her stomach and moaned. If everything would just hold still for a minute....

She reached the mattress, but was thrown off by a violent upheaval to starboard and bashed her head against the far bulkhead. This time the ship didn't immediately right itself, and she remained dazed in a heap lying half on the wall. She reached up and felt her fingers become slick with the blood oozing from her tender temple and cheek. Roselyn pressed her hand against the wound and winced.

The cabin door burst open. Roselyn was confused when the door seemed to open from the floor. From his strange angle, the captain whipped his head around in the darkness, searching for her. Roselyn didn't know what to make of her topsy-turvy world.

"Miss Weldon!" the captain hollered into the room. "Roselyn, are you in here?"

"Umph," she grunted. "I'm over here." She attempted to right herself but the canting of the room and the gash on her head made her woozy.

"You need to get up and come with me right away." The captain scrambled across the slanted room and grabbed her by the arm. Rough fingers dug into her flesh when he yanked her off the floor.

"Ow!" she complained as he dragged her towards the door. "What's happened? Is the ship on its side?"

"Not exactly."

The two of them made it out the doorway and into the hallway leading to the deck. She realized with dawning horror they were slogging through water midway up her calves.

"Is the ship sinking?" She tried to control the terror that was taking root. Up to this point, she'd done a fairly good job of it. Even while being thrown around the cabin with the wind howling, she had managed to keep some semblance of calm.

The captain didn't answer her; whether he didn't hear her or was too concerned with steering her out onto the deck, she didn't know. The sailors staggered on the heaving deck, lowering skiffs and rowboats, their faces taut with fear and terrified determination. She was accustomed to organized activity on deck where the well-worn sailors moved with confidence, but this night they scrambled about verging on chaos. Their show of fear only served to panic her more.

She pulled on the captain's arm until he turned around. "The ship is sinking isn't it!" she screamed over the wind. "Oh dear God, we're sinking."

Roselyn was in full blown hysteria now. The blood coursing down her face and neck, which had caused such dismay before, was nearly forgotten and replaced by a premonition of the mighty British ship sinking and her body afloat and lifeless, tossed endlessly by the relentless waves.

"I can't swim, Captain. Oh dear God, I can't swim." Her voice was a reedy scream as she clawed against his hand to free her arm from his powerful grasp. She was desperate to get away from him and return to the imagined safety of the cabin. Even an upside down cabin was better than a rowboat to her hysterical mind.

"Get in the boat. If you get into the boat you won't have to swim."

"No," she shrieked. "That boat's too small." She dug in her heels and sunk into a squat to make it harder for the captain to drag her towards what she knew in her heart was certain death.

In an obvious demonstration of his fear and desire to get her across the deck and into a lifeboat, he slapped her–hard–across the face.

Roselyn inhaled sharply but stopped struggling. With wide eyed horror, she allowed the man to lead her to the boat. In a desperate attempt to take control of the chaos, he thrust her towards the boat and hurried off in the opposite direction.

"Come on, miss." A grizzled old tar took her by the hand and wiped at the blood on her face with a rag. He spoke with a heavy accent making it difficult to understand him as he yelled over the wind. "The skiff is da best place for ya, if dis ole bitch goes down, we'll be wantin' ya safe and ou 'o the drink." With surprising gentlemanly solicitousness, he handed her into the boat. Roselyn clutched at the man's hands not wanting to let go. She looked around frantically at the men running past and tried to locate her maid, but she was nowhere to be found. The wind whipped her black hair around her face gluing the long strands to her cheeks and forehead with the blood and making it nearly impossible to see anything.

A deafening crack followed by several loud crashes and the huge ship groaned under the weight as more water dumped on deck. Roselyn was doused from head to toe with frigid, salty water. Her scream wasn't heard over the roar of the sea and the creaking of the wood as the ship came apart. The deck listed severely and, to her horror, several men lost their grip on the rails and fell into the ferocious sea. She grasped at her ancient sailor, terrified that he might also fall into the churning water and abandon her to a dreadful fate.

Roselyn could only wonder in mounting panic where her missing maid could be. It was clear to her now that this mighty merchant ship was sinking and her only hope was to stay in the tiny row boat and pray.

Time was running out. Another big wave or two and the crumbling ship would go under the sea and never re-emerge. The old sailor cut the lines holding the smaller boat to the deck. The skiff slid and the enormous wave he'd prophesied came and lifted the skiff into the water, turning the enormous ship fully on its side.

For one chilling moment, Roselyn thought for sure the old sailor would be lost, but she grasped whole handfuls of his shirt and hauled him on board just before the small vessel crashed broadside into the roiling ocean. Their tiny craft was drawn away from the sinking ship almost immediately and it tossed about in the water. Each time the skiff crested the top of a wave, they looked around wildly for a sign of the sinking ship or other survivors, but they saw no one. Eventually, even the remains of the ship were lost to them.

Roselyn sat on the bench at the stern of the row boat and peered out into the moonless night for signs of other survivors. She screamed out names into the horrific darkness until her voice gave out, her throat too sore to keep up the vigil. The sailor operated the oars and steered into the waves, doing his best to keep them upright.

She realized she didn't even know his name. Hours later, while the sun rose on the calm sea, Roselyn lay curled up in the back of the boat. Her dress was heavy with water and ruined by salt. Her hair lay stringy and loose down her back. The sea washed the blood from her face and hair. Salt stung the cuts and abrasions until she was simply too numb to feel it. Her sailor lay slumped over on his side, seeming as weary and shocked from the ordeal as she was. When the sun rose, a giant fiery ball emerging from the watery horizon, Roselyn acknowledged to herself that it was the most beautiful sunrise she'd ever seen.

She was alive.

Granted, she was adrift in a tiny boat in the great Atlantic Ocean with a nameless stranger who saved her life, but still, she was alive.

That thought brought a faint smile to her lips as she finally fell into exhausted sleep.

Chapter Two

July 26, 1718

The man stretched out on the quarter deck naked from the waist up, his fingers laced together behind his head. His raven black hair curled over his forehead and fluttered in the breeze while he lay there, eyes closed, taking in the sun. The crew milled about the deck. They'd completed all of the work which needed to be done to bring the ship to rights after the horrendous storm that blew the previous night. It was tradition on the ship to allow for a day of rest and celebration after surviving a storm of such magnitude.

"Cap'n."

The relaxed man kept his eyes closed and willed the voice to go away. It wasn't often that he allowed himself the opportunity to do absolutely nothing. A ship this size, with a crew of one hundred and fifty men, kept a sea captain busy.

"Cap'n," the voice more insistent this time.

He stretched his long legs, flexed his naked toes and re-crossed his ankles. "Yes, Mr. Blake?" He did not sit up. He didn't even sound especially interested.

"There's a boat to starboard, Cap'n," the quartermaster informed him.

His interest level climbed a bit. "Whose flag are they flying?"

"No flag." The older man's voice slurred slightly from the rum he'd already consumed that day.

The captain opened one eye and looked at his quartermaster. "No flag? What kind of ship?"

"Not a ship, it's a boat. A dinky little row boat."

That was interesting enough information for the captain to open both eyes and sit up. "Is anyone in it?"

"Can't tell. Davy spied it from the nest."

"You have the glass?"

The captain stood, rising to his full height of an inch or so over six feet. The quartermaster handed him a long spy glass. The two men stood at the starboard rail and looked out over the wide expanse of sea. After only a second or so scanning the water, the captain located the row boat. It was a small vessel, the size of a lifeboat, bobbing in the relatively calm sea. He trained the glass on it, and though he couldn't see anyone, there was a flutter of what could have been material.

"All right, let's go get it." The captain handed the glass back to Mr. Blake who ran down the wooden steps shouting orders to trim the sails and come about.

Curiosity had a firm grip on the captain now. It wasn't difficult; boredom was a side effect of life at sea counteracted only by brief moments of thrilling battles and hellacious storms. Granted, the life of a mariner was one of complete freedom and adventure, but being the captain of this particular ship, it was also a life of wealth and advantage.

The great three-masted ship, Neptune's Revenge, cut through the waves then turned starboard toward the tiny boat bobbing in the distance. Handsome Jack, the infamous pirate captain, stretched his arms languidly over his head. He rolled his head on his neck and arched his back to complete the stretch.

The ship had been at sea for three months on a return voyage bound for Nassau, the port in the New Providence pirate paradise. The cruise had been unimaginably successful. The original food stores had dwindled, the precious vacated space taken up by a bounty of captured gold coins, jewels, and other riches from the merchant and passenger ships the pirate and crew boarded and conquered. Oddly enough, the booty that had excited the pirate the most was a barrel of crisp green apples taken off a Spanish galleon just days before.

He took a bite of one of those apples as his ship come alongside the small boat. Two people were aboard but neither responded to the yells and shouts rained down on them from the rails of Neptune's Revenge. At a nod from the captain, one of the younger sailors leapt off the side of the ship. He made a perfect swan dive and came up next to the row boat.

"It's a lady and some old sea dog," the young man hollered up to the captain.

"Are they alive?" Jack yelled back down.

The lad rocked the boat a bit. The old man moved his arm and the lady moaned. "Aye, they be in bad shape, but they live."

"All right, then. Bring 'em up."

The captain ordered a basket lowered. The two occupants were raised, one at a time. Finally, the boat was lifted and secured to the side of the ship. Jack made his way through the gawking crowd of seamen. Lying on the deck was exactly what the boy reported. An old man with a rough beard and missing teeth, his breeches torn and his shirt ragged around the hem, lay unconscious on the teak deck.

But it wasn't the old man the rest of the crew ogled. Jack shifted his attention to the woman. He could see a hint of her beauty even after spending time adrift in a row boat in the open ocean. Her face was young, and he estimated she couldn't be more than nineteen. Her full, bow shaped lips were chapped from the sun and dehydration; her hair, though matted from the wind and the salt water, was jet black and long. Not much could be said about her figure underneath piles and piles of silk and petticoats, but her corset alluded to a small waist and her breasts showed promise.

"Take the man below and get some water into him," the captain ordered. He knelt and picked up the girl, her weight greatly enhanced by the soaked dress. Without it she probably weighed only seven or eight stone. Once the thought entered his head, he found it hard not to think of her without her dress on. Obviously, this had been a longer trip than he thought if a waterlogged woman-child could arouse him.

The quartermaster looked upon the captain with amusement. "Can I assume you'll take care of the lady yourself, Jack?" He waggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.

"Thank you for your concern. I surely can't leave her with you sea dogs."

"Sure you can, Cap'n," Blake assured him in his best English accent, "We're all right well be'aved society gen'lmen, doncha know."

Jack flashed a smile and responded to his officer's jest in kind. "I'll just take her to my cabin."

"I bet you will." Blake roared with good natured laughter. The quartermaster turned to supervise the other survivor's transport below decks.

Jack's cabin boy was in his quarters when he kicked open the door. The room, neat and tidy, was spacious and well appointed. He lay the young woman on a massive bed made up with a satin coverlet and pristine white silk sheets over a feather bed and down quilts.

"Bring a pitcher of fresh water and a couple more apples," he told the cabin boy. "When she wakes, she'll want to have a warm bath, so bring in the tub, too."

"Aye, Cap'n." The boy gave a quick salute and trotted out the door.

Jack took in the woman who lay on his bed. A welcome sight for sure, but she was clearly a lady, and not some floozy from a nearby port.

He glanced about the cabin deciding what he should do, and then back at the girl. Woman, he corrected himself, looking over her body again and mentally adding another year or two to the estimate he made of her age earlier. He leaned over her to assess the damage. There was a gash on her head that would need tending. Her temple was bruised, but the salt had cleaned the open wound and the bleeding had stopped so he didn't think stitches would be necessary. The dress was going to have to go. It was ruined and still wet and eventually, he knew from experience, the salt would make her itch.

He rolled her over on her side and worked on the buttons down her back. There were a lot of them and each was very small. After fighting with six of them he uttered a curse and then simply yanked the rest of them off by tearing the dress straight down the back.

The sound and the sudden feeling of being jerked around brought her back to consciousness and the young woman screamed.

Chapter Three

"Don't you touch me," Roselyn screamed and leapt from the bed. The integrity of her dress completely compromised, it fell away in the front when nothing held it together in the back. She grasped at the cloth across her breasts, trying to hold it in place and protect her modesty.

"I'm not going to touch you." When the man stood from his kneeling position on the floor and took a step in her direction, she screamed again and ran to the only protection she could find. She stood behind a massive cherry desk hoping the solid woodenness of it would provide some protection against the half-naked giant advancing on her.

"Don't come any closer," she warned and grabbed a letter opener on the desk and wielded it with her free hand.

The man chuckled. "Oh, love, you're adorable, standing there all brave and trembling, clutching at your dress and pointing the silly little dagger at me."

"Who are you?"

"My lady." He made an exaggerated bow. "Handsome Jack and the Neptune's Revenge at your service."

"Oh my God!" She sank into the desk chair. Any hope she had of finding Rupert now was a lost cause. The sting of tears pinched behind her eyes. This was just too much. First, she'd had to deal with the death of her father, then the sinking of the ship, and now pirates. What had she ever done for God to forsake her this way?

"Oh now." He approached the desk and slipped the little dagger from her hand and slid it in a desk drawer. "Tis not as bad as all that. You've been rescued, you know."

"Only to be held captive on a pirate ship."

"Who said you were a captive?" he asked, his voice smooth as honey.

Roselyn realized how close he stood to her and she leapt from the chair, circled around again, and stopped on the opposite side of the massive slab of cherry wood.

"You're not a captive," he reiterated.

"Oh, then you're telling me you'll let me off this ship this very instant?" She thought it doubtful, but there might be a chance.

This time his laugh was louder, more robust than the chuckle from before. His eyes twinkled with mirth and she couldn't help noticing the accompanying smile was devastating against his tanned face. "Absolutely." He waved his arm in a sweeping gesture of invitation. "You are free to go. In fact, I'll escort you myself."

"No." She sidled towards the door, ready to dart away at the first threatening move he made. "I don't need any help."

His smile did not diminish and it did not mock her in any way. In fact, he enjoyed this. He was intrigued by her bravery. Usually any captive, man or woman alike, either cried hysterically or begged with simpering pleas when faced with the enormity of being captured by Handsome Jack and the crew of Neptune's Revenge. This girl was different. Obviously afraid–she would be an idiot if she weren't–still there was a pluck about her that interested him.

And she was exquisite to look at. Even tousled and abused by the storm, he could see she was beautiful. Her sable brown eyes gleamed at him in anger and fear, and her plump lips pursed in frustration. She stood warily near the door, her pretty toes peeking out from under her tattered dress, prepared to dash to freedom.

He extended both hands in front of him, palms open, showing her he had no weapons. He came around the desk as she retreated further towards the door.

"If I'm really free to go then I can do this myself." Her voice waivered only a little bit, but he could hear the fear she tried so hard to mask with bravado.

"Certainly." Jack tried to arrange his expression into something a little more serious, but failed miserably. "I'm just coming along to help you with the gang plank."

She felt around the door when it pressed against her back. Without turning around, she fumbled with the knob, managed to open it, but then stumbled against the lip on the floor. Jack darted forward, intending to catch her before she fell, but she regained her balance and clung onto the door frame with her one free hand. She screamed again as he got closer, so he abruptly stopped and held out his open hands again to show he meant no malice. She reminded him of a skittish kitten, and he couldn't resist flashing her another broad grin.

"Out the passage to the right." He gestured with his eyebrows and a nod of his head.

"You're really going to let me go?"

"You are free to leave this ship right now if that's what you want," he assured her again.

She let loose of the door jamb and broke into a run down the hallway in the direction he'd indicated. Jack followed at a leisurely pace, knowing she couldn't get anywhere.

She clung to the rail of the deck looking out at miles and miles of calm ocean when he exited the gangway and walked up behind her. She whirled away from him and ran to the port side of the ship. Again, all she would see was ocean. She spun around and glared at the pirate behind her.

"There's no land." She sounded annoyed.

He smirked at her, smug.

"You said I could go." She pointed out across the expanse of water. "You said I could go."

"Yes, you can go." He nodded and smiled at her with a face as innocent as an angel.

"No I can't, oh you...you...bastard!" She clamped her hand over her mouth in shocked surprise. Her father would be appalled. And she didn't even want to think about Rupert. Her fiancé would not be pleased. It would just go to prove what they had always said about her.

"Not exactly, love." He leaned against the rail next to her. "While I often wished otherwise, I do have a father."

"But you said..." The tears welled in her eyes again. The lashes weighed heavily with unexpended tear drops.

"What are you accusing me of?" Jack smiled solicitously. "You are certainly free to go."

She stared at him. Her mouth hung open in shock.

"Or..." He reached for her and she flinched. He moved his hand slower but he continued on and lifted her torn dress to cover her breast. She hadn't noticed that the fabric was slipping. "Or," he repeated, "you can come back to my cabin where you can have your wounds tended to and have a warm bath and wash the salt from your skin and comb your hair and sleep in a comfortable bed." His voice practically purred, but she wasn't fooled. Roselyn glared at the salacious pirate.

"I'm not going back to your cabin. You must be insane." Roselyn was a minister's daughter and a minister's fiancée. She could not stay in his cabin, and she was certainly not one of his concubines. She had heard of Handsome Jack the pirate and his reputation. It was well known what the crew of the Neptune's Revenge did with the women they captured.

"Fine then." He took a step closer to her. The space shrunk, but she resisted the temptation to back away and bravely kept her ground. "You certainly don't have to come with me. I'm sure the men would be happy to have you below."

He moved away from the rail and she got a clear view of the sailors on the main deck eyeing her in an unsavory way. While Jack was frightening, those men terrified her. When one of them made what could have only been an obscene gesture, she started and turned back to Jack.

He held out his hand to her.

"No games. You'll be safe with me. Come back and have a bath and we'll talk."

Roselyn hesitated for a second, and then with as much dignity as she could muster, she gathered the tattered remains of her ruined dress and strode past the pirate, ignored his outstretched hand and stalked back down the gangway to his cabin.

She heard him laughing behind her and it only infuriated her more.

Chapter Four

She regarded him, her expression leery, completely prepared to jump and flee if he made a move she didn't like. Flee to where she didn't know. The pirate ship was clearly in the middle of the ocean and the only other option was to seek refuge with the sailors, which was really no option at all. So she sat on the bed, poised to run, and watched the giant, still conspicuously half-naked pirate, as he supervised the filling of the bath tub.

It was difficult not to watch him, and fairly quickly she gave up all pretense of being sly about it. She hated him; that was certain, but his body was simply too divine not to appreciate. The man was very tall, very broad, and very tan. His hair, black as midnight, curled at the ends, and he wore a scarf tied around his head to keep the long locks away from his face. She didn't have a lot of experience when it came to men's physiques, in fact, none whatsoever. Not even from art books unless she peeked at them in someone else's home. Her father considered even classical sculpture sinful. Still, she knew what she liked. There was some sort of primeval knowledge deep inside of her that told her he was a fine specimen. Handsome Jack–if ever there was a perfect name for someone, this was it.

His shoulders were broad and square, and she marveled at the play of the muscles in his back as he helped dump the buckets of water in the bathtub. Completely intrigued by a tan line which appeared just below the waistband of his breeches when he stretched, she averted her eyes before she embarrassed herself further. But most fascinating of all, the area beneath the waistband appeared only slightly less tan than his torso. She blushed at the implication of what a tan rear end would mean. What a rear end it was, too. Everything about the man was muscular and strong.

Without a word, he gestured towards the door. The cabin boy left with the empty buckets.

She was alone with him again.

"What is your name, lovely?" he asked.

"I am Miss Weldon." She may not be gentry, but she was still a well bred young woman and, thus she used her haughtiest tone. "Soon to be Mrs. Rupert Merickel."

"Oh, then I'll be flirting uselessly with a nearly married woman." He placed his large hand over his naked heart, feigning a pain there. "I am sure my heart will break."

She didn't say anything, merely continued to stare at him, her expression nonplussed at his attempt to win her over.

He nodded to the steaming bathtub. "Climb in while it's still warm."

"I most certainly will not. Not while you're in the room."

He chuckled again. It was very unnerving when he did that. Worse yet, she was beginning to like it a little, despite herself.

"Can I at least help you with your gown since you've no lady's maid to assist you?" He was all solicitation and geniality.

Her heart ached at the reminder of her lost maid. Sally had been a dear girl, not just a helpful maid, but a good traveling companion as well.

"I think you've helped me enough with my gown, thank you very much."

That elicited another sexy chuckle. "Fine, I'll leave you to it." He opened a huge wardrobe in the corner and pulled out a shirt. "I'll return in a bit to see if you need any help washing your back."

"Get out!" she yelled, pointing at the door. Just as she secretly hoped, she was rewarded with a chuckle. Really, I must stop that – she was an engaged woman, after all. She purposefully thought of Rupert in his starched white shirt and clerical collar. She was fairly confident Rupert didn't have a tan line anywhere on his body.

Jack lingered outside the cabin and contemplated the lovely Miss Weldon, stripping off her clothes, even now as he stood on the opposite side of the door. He had known that she watched him while he supervised the filling of her bathwater. She had quickly averted her eyes but she didn't fool him.

One point for the pirate. He mentally ticked off his score card. Jack knew he'd have to take his time with this one; she would be easily spooked.

He listened outside the door only a second before he heard the faintest slosh of water hit the floor and her long, contented sigh when she sank into the warmth. He smiled again as he strode away from his cabin.

A scant half hour later, she heard a perfunctory rap on the door and before she could refuse entry, the door opened and her pirate sauntered in. When did he become my pirate?

"I'm not dressed yet. I'm not even out of the bath," she screeched, and tried desperately to cover herself with her hands.

"I'm not looking," he promised. He walked towards the bed, his hands full, and it truly appeared as though he wasn't looking. He made an exaggerated attempt at covering his eyes when he turned and approached the bath. She pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her chest.

"I brought clean towels." He laid some fluffy toweling on the chair next to the bath. "And some soap."

"Soap?" she asked incredulously. "I'm naked! You need to get out!"

To his credit, he still wasn't looking at her. "But this is my cabin," he reminded her. "Where else am I to go? Besides, this is very special soap. Virgins make it in Jamaica from coconut milk."

"Virgins what?" This man was mad, and maddening. "I don't care who makes it."

"Use it on your hair. I also brought you a dress. I'm pretty good with women's bodies. It will be your size."

"You seem awfully full of yourself." She reached forward and snatched the soap from his hand. "I don't want to wear one of your concubine's dresses. I won't put one of those nasty things on."

Jack picked up the torn and filthy dress and undergarments from the floor. "Well these are ruined. You're always welcome to wear nothing. In fact," he bent and gathered the new clothes he'd laid out on the bed, "I think I'd prefer you naked."

"Wait," she couldn't believe she was saying this, "I'll wear the dress." It is certainly better than the alternative.

He shrugged. "Whatever you want."

She watched him warily as she lathered the soap and washed her hair. It really did smell marvelous. "I'd like to get out now. The water is getting cold."

"I won't look."

Roselyn sat in the chilly water, her mouth hanging open at the audacity of the man. Unfortunately, she really had no choice. She could either freeze to death in the increasingly colder water, or she could risk his seeing her. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, gathered her bravery and rose from the water, quickly grabbing a towel and wrapping the warm, fuzzy material around herself.

True to his word, he didn't look. It made the top ten list of hardest things he had ever done.

He had given her as much time in the bath as he dared. He had come by several minutes before and heard her crying. It seemed a perfectly reasonable reaction to all that she'd endured. As much as he wanted to comfort her, he seriously doubted she'd appreciate him pulling her out of the steamy tub and into his arms for a soothing embrace, no matter how much the idea appealed to him. Actually, parts of him were stirring that promised any embrace would not stay soothing for long.

He took several deep breaths to calm the excited parts of his anatomy before he turned to her and offered his hand to assist her from the bath. Her skin was pink from the warmth of the tub, and her hair, free of the salty crust, gleamed in ebony silkiness. She refused to meet his gaze–out of shyness he assumed–and he didn't press her.

This young woman, alternately brave and timid, captivated him with her mercurial nature. Ever since leaving England, never had a woman not throw herself at him and he was looking forward to the challenge.

Chapter Five

He did insist on helping her with the corset ribbons and buttons. Before she let Jack assist, she dressed as much as she had been able. All that was visible to the pirate was her back in the unbuttoned dress.

The garment was gorgeous; the silk finer than she'd ever had the luxury to put on her body before. It was a rich shade of purple, a color her father would never have let her own. He would have declared it too "proud". All her dresses were brown or tan or cream. Well, all the dresses she used to own. Now she owned nothing. Everything she owned was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Well, I was right." He looked her over with an appreciative eye. "A perfect fit."

Absurdly, she found herself disappointed to find that her pirate had donned a shirt. The soft, white linen hung loosely around his torso, the cuffs unbuttoned and the laces undone at the neck. She averted her eyes and even went so far as to cross the room to look out the large porthole when he removed his buff colored breeches and put on black ones and a pair of shiny, black leather boots. When she turned around, she was taken aback. Now the pirate really looked the part. Did he have that earring before? How had she not noticed a thick gold hoop in one ear?

"We'll have dinner in here tonight. I thought we could talk and get to know each other better."

"You know everything you need to know about me," she protested.

"Well then, we'll play a game." It wasn't a suggestion, more of a dictate.

The cabin boy and several other sailors brought in a table and two high backed chairs. In amazement, she watched as they spread a pressed linen tablecloth and set the table with china, crystal and silver. When the meal was brought in, she was further astounded. Roasted pheasant with a fruit sauce, fresh greens and potatoes and a delicate broth soup were placed on the table, all in china dishes. They had certainly never eaten this well on the merchant vessel.

"My lady." Jack pulled out her chair. She hesitated briefly before she decided to move forward with the peace he extended.

"Thank you." She sat in the chair with all the decorum she possessed, which had been drilled into her from birth by her exceedingly strict father. "Truly, I had no idea being held captive on a pirate ship would be so comfortable."

"Need I remind you again that you're not a captive?"

"Right. I'm free to go anytime I want to dive into the sea and drown," her voice dripped with sarcasm, the gentle truce in jeopardy.

"We are only about two days from New Providence. Simply swim."

"Ah, but alas," she confessed, "I don't know how to swim."

"Well then, may I suggest you stay on board with me and enjoy a lovely dinner," he paused for a beat and then added, "and maybe more."

She flashed him a look. There would not be more, but she was tired of fighting off his advances, even though she had a suspicion he wasn't even really trying. Not yet anyway. She would have to stay on guard. Now, if she could ignore how devastatingly handsome he was.

"Do all pirates eat this well?" She helped herself to some from each platter.

"I find that a well fed crew is a crew less likely to mutiny." He popped a grape in his mouth. "But we were lucky enough to capture a Spanish ship just last week. There was some minor royalty and other wealthy gentlemen on board. Apparently they liked to travel in style. Now, my sweet, you shall enjoy their finer things."

The pirate reached over the table and filled her crystal glass with red wine. "I would also like to add, as I don't keep concubines, that the dress you are wearing came from the same ship. There are trunks and trunks of them in the hold."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She really did feel bad and tried to sound as contrite as she felt, but it was hard with a mouthfull of pheasant. "I didn't mean to insult you."

"Of course you did. It's a good thing you are so very lovely that I will be forced to forgive you." He graced her with an absolutely devastating smile.

"I was truly apologizing. You don't need to be mean."

He stared at her for a moment, as if he contemplated her sincerity. "I was not jesting, nor was I being mean. You are a beautiful woman."

She waved him away with an imperious flick of her hand and they ate for a moment in silence.

"That explains the availability of the food. Who is the chef?" Roselyn didn't realize she was so hungry until the food's aroma hit her. After that first bite, she realized she was ravenous. She'd already eaten one whole plate and was eyeing the bird with seconds in mind.

"I have a cook with talent. Like I said, a well fed crew rarely mutinies." He offered her the platter of poultry and refilled her wine glass. "Shall we play our game?" He raised his glass in invitation.

Roselyn was feeling much more relaxed and genial after a filling meal and good wine. "I must warn you that I am very good at parlor games."

"Are you?" The flirting pirate was back. "It has been quite a while since I spent time in a respectable parlor. Perhaps I should be given a handicap?"

"Perhaps," she conceded. "What would you like to play? Charades? Cards? I'm quite good at chess," she offered.

"I was thinking of a card game," he began, but when her smile spread in confidence, he added a twist. "Of course, we'll have to play by Pirate Rules."

She smiled. She was a very good card player. "I might be sorry I said this, but I'm game." She was sated after the meal and a little warm after the wine.

Roselyn was rewarded by his sexy chuckle. Oh my, is he a beautiful man. She watched her pirate as the cabin boy cleared the dishes, except for the glasses and brought another bottle of wine. When he wasn't obnoxiously trying to seduce her and was just being himself, Jack was absolutely magnificent. His razor sharp jaw line emphasized a strong chin and cheekbones. His eyes weren't brown. Brown was much to ordinary for Jack. His eyes were as black as his ebony hair. A well trimmed mustache spread over his full upper lip – not a bushy one like her father's – but a well maintained strip of hair that pulled her eyes to his sensual mouth. She longed to run a finger over it to see if the hair was as soft as it looked.

"Are you ready to hear the rules, then?" Jack placed a deck of cards on the table between them. "We will each draw a card, high card wins; low card must drink and answer a question."

Chapter Six

"I get to shuffle," she declared. "I don't trust you not to cheat."

He handed her the cards with great ceremony and she mixed them. When she gave the deck back to him he fanned them out on the table.

"Ladies first," he offered.

Roselyn smiled with confidence and extended her hand. She pulled out a card with her index finger and slid it across the table. She flipped it over and her smile faded when she revealed the six of hearts. Jack reached his hand over the deck of cards and, with a flourish, withdrew the queen of spades.

"Too bad." He clicked his tongue. He splashed a good size gulp of wine in her glass and indicated for her to drink.

Roselyn brought the glass to her mouth and took a sip but he shook his head. "Oh no, my dear," Jack told her, "Pirate Rules require that you drink all of it in one gulp."

"Not very lady like," she complained, but she tossed the rest of the wine back.

"Pirates don't usually have a problem with unladylike women. Now for my question." Jack tapped the table with his card and eyed her while he contemplated his first question. "What is your Christian name?"

She exhaled, relieved by the easy question. "Roselyn Louise Weldon."

"Roselyn. Rose," he purred. The way he said her name was sinful. She ought to know. Her parent had drilled her time and time again with what was sinful and what wasn't. Her father definitely would not have approved of the way the words fell from his tongue.

She took a deep breath. "You draw first this time."

"My pleasure." He pulled the nine of diamonds.

Hers was the deuce of spades. She hoped his next question would be as easy.

"Where were you going on your merchant ship?"

She audibly exhaled. Another easy one. She answered after downing the wine he poured her. "I am for New Providence, to marry my fiancé, Rupert."

"And who is Rupert? Why is he in New Providence?"

"I'm sorry," Roselyn shook her head, "you need to win the next question. After all, these are your rules."

"Right you are, dear Rose. Your turn."

This time she triumphantly won the question. "Your accent is upper class English and you have alluded to a life in drawing rooms. Is your family of the aristocracy?"

"And the lady goes right for the throat." How much to tell? "My father is an Earl. I am the third son. A man of absolutely no worth."

She blinked at him. He said it so matter-of-factly he could almost believe it himself, that after all these years it really did mean nothing to him.

The next three questions went to the pirate. He learned her fiancé was a missionary, and that her father had died unexpectedly, leaving her without means. She intended to join the missionary and be wed ahead of their agreed-upon schedule. Jack wondered how her fiancé would take to her appearing with no advance word. New Providence and its hedonistic lifestyle had a way with even the most stalwart of men.

Roselyn drew the ten of diamonds and Jack drew the four of clubs. This time she thought for a few seconds before she asked her question. It was getting harder to think them all the way through. She'd had two glasses at dinner and had taken five rapid gulps of wine. That had to count for at least another glass, and with the way he filled her glass after each loss, it might have really been more like two more or maybe even three. She didn't think she had ever had even three glasses of wine before and besides, her father had always insisted that her wine be watered at dinner.

Suddenly she had an inspiration. "Have you ever been in love?" she asked.

"I have loved many women," Jack answered with a pirate's bravado.

"That's cheating!" she declared. "You have to answer the question or you'll ruin the integrity of the game. Have you ever been in love?"

Handsome Jack thought back to the many women in his life. There was only one woman he had been in love with. He, a silly boy of nineteen and she, a lovely child of eighteen. They had been so young and madly in love. Her father refused to allow her to marry him as he had no title and a very small income. Like a naïve, impetuous youth, he ran off to make his fortune in the Navy, the service the only option available to him besides taking vows. She had professed her undying love and told him she'd wait for him...

"I did love a girl once, many lifetimes ago. Her name was Melinda and she married an earl. I hear she's had three children and grown very fat." He was surprised to find himself so candid.

"I'm so sorry," Roselyn said, "about the marrying someone else part, not the growing fat part."

He chuckled at her truthfulness. He was pleased to see the wine had loosened her. The tension around her mouth and eyes was nearly gone. She lost the next draw and gulped yet another healthy swig of wine.

"Have you ever been in love?" he asked her.

"I'm engaged," she told him, like that was a sufficient answer.

"That doesn't mean you're in love with him."

"That is a horrible question," she declared indignantly, oblivious to the hypocritical nature of her protest. "I won't answer it."

"Oh dear," his tone mocked. "Pirate Rules state you must face a penalty then."

Her eyebrows flew up, but she really didn't want to answer the question. "What kind of penalty?" she asked, with visions of walking planks and other "piratey" punishments swirling in her head.

Her pirate leaned back in the chair, and looked at her in contemplation, as if he debated the form of punishment and its severity. "I think a kiss will do."

Roselyn blanched, but she didn't want him to know that she wasn't in love with Rupert. Did it really matter? Women got married because they had no skills, no money of their own and no way to live without a man. Love had nothing to do with it. But somehow, she thought the pirate would capitalize on that knowledge. She was engaged to Rupert because her father told her she was and, being a dutiful daughter, she had never offered an argument.

She seriously considered the prospect of a kiss. The fact that she thought about it at all was surely due to all the wine she'd consumed. Otherwise, she had no excuse for such wanton thoughts. But as she mulled over the punishment, her eyes were drawn to his mouth and his mustache, and her gaze settled there for a moment.

"One kiss? That's all?" she asked, wanting to clarify the terms of the punishment.

"Only one," he smiled at her silkily, "unless you refuse to answer another question. Or, of course, unless you like it so much that you want another."

In her haughtiest manner, she told him, "I am sure one will be sufficient."

When Jack stood from his chair, she did the same. He took a step towards her, and she thought he looked even more wolfish than before. She held her ground though, and he strode the remaining two steps until he stood directly in front of her with only inches between them. Roselyn closed her eyes and puckered her lips.

He chuckled, a deep rumbling Roselyn felt in her stomach and, in an unexpected development, even lower.

Jack brought a hand to her face and she felt him brush a lock of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear. He circled one finger from her ear along her jaw line underneath her chin, and then gently nudged her chin so that her face tilted up.

His thumb strayed to her mouth, and he gently rubbed the pad of it along her bottom lip. The unexpected move surprised her and, when she parted her lips in bemusement, he lowered his head and took her mouth with his. His lips were warm and soft and the feeling they invoked was gentle and dear. Without moving his lips from hers, he gently caressed her mouth and stroked her bottom lip with his tongue. She tensed briefly at the unexpectedness of the sensation but then slipped back into a relaxed, languid stance. He intensified the kiss by degrees and eventually his tongue slipped into her mouth and the caress deepened. Both hands cradled her face and he deftly altered the angle of her head to accommodate his preference.

Roselyn's initial trepidation soon gave way to interest and then she wasn't thinking anymore at all. So this is a kiss.

The simple peck on the lips she'd received from Rupert when they were engaged, and then again when he left on his mission, shouldn't even have been called by the same name as this kiss. She had felt absolutely nothing when her fiancé kissed her.

Handsome Jack's kiss was a revelation.

She tasted of wine and innocence; a heady mix. He found himself deepening the kiss faster than he thought she would accept, but it was almost beyond his control. He had been amused when she'd lifted her face to him with the childish expression of a kiss: her lips puckered and her eyes squeezed shut. He'd chuckled, but as soon as their lips met, he no longer found anything about the kiss amusing.

The lovely girl in his arms made a soft mewling sound, and he altered the angle of his mouth to plunder it completely. What treasures she held, this sweet Rose. He pulled her against him, lifting her gently so that she stood on her tiptoes and his growing erection nestled in the cradle of her stomach.

Chapter Seven

That sudden awareness of his arousal brought her slamming back to reality. She placed both her hands on his chest and pushed hard against him. He immediately ended the kiss, but he didn't remove his hands from around her. He slowly relaxed his grip, loosened his hands on her, and let her move ever so slightly away from him but still within the circle of his arms.

"Have you never been kissed before?" he whispered.

"Yes." She was lying and surely he could tell. "No. Not like that."

"It was lovely, don't you agree, sweet Rose?"

Roselyn didn't answer, but she felt her face go hot, blushing a color resembling her namesake.

"Please release me," she asked quietly. Hoping both that he would and he wouldn't.

He let his arms completely relax and let her go. He turned and sat on his chair, leaning back until it balanced on only two legs. He rested his crossed ankles on the table in a pose of exaggerated nonchalance.

"Sit back down, we'll eat some fruit and finish our game."

Roselyn picked up her glass and drank the last several swallows of wine and immediately regretted having done it. "My head is swimming. I don't want any more wine." Now she was embarrassed. Obviously, the kiss didn't affect him at all. She placed one cool hand upon her flaming cheek and sat heavily in her chair. "I think that was more than one kiss."

"Technically, my lovely, that was only one kiss. My lips never left yours." He used a long, thin knife to slice an apple.

She watched him with fascination, her head was fuzzy from too much wine and the life-altering kiss. She sat at the table mesmerized by the knife and the man, and blinked her eyes sleepily. Roselyn was remarkably tired; deep down to the bone tired. She was quite sure she had never been this exhausted. How long ago was it that the merchant ship went down? Three weeks? Hard to believe it was just the day before.

Jack ate several apple slices while he contemplated her. He released her from their embrace but he hadn't wanted to. More importantly, he didn't want to think about why. Piracy was not an occupation that lent itself to introspection. He only allowed her escape because, when she pulled away from the kiss, he had seen fear in her eyes. He reminded himself harshly that women held no sway for him, and this little virgin wasn't going to change that. Nevertheless, she was falling asleep at the table, and regardless of his reputation, he was not a cruel man.

Jack set the rest of the apple and the knife on the table and dropped his booted feet heavily on the plank floor. He rose to his feet, took her by the hand and drew her up. Like a deer, she looked skittish and about to bolt.

"You've had a very long day. I have cruelly gotten you drunk, and now you're falling asleep at the table." He gently tugged her hand and she acquiesced. She followed him slowly, if not warily. "Come on, I won't bite you. Not even if you ask me to. Not tonight." He set her on the edge of his enormous bed and she sank into the feathers. She blinked at him with heavy eyes. "All right, my beautiful Rose." He reached behind her and started on the row of buttons. "Let's get this dress off you."

"Thank you for the dress. I've never owned anything so beautiful in my whole life." She pressed the dress on her legs and smoothed out wrinkles. "My father would not have liked this dress, and if he'd seen me in it, he would have had me reading bible verses on my knees for hours."

Jack slid the dress off her ivory shoulders and pulled her to her feet again. The heavy material caught briefly on her lovely hips and then fell the rest of the way to the floor. She plopped back on the bed in her shift and corset.

"Well, I am a connoisseur of beautiful women, and I don't know what was wrong with your father, but I love you in this dress." Jack tossed his leg behind her and straddled her. She was cradled in his lap, one of his legs on either side of her. His fingers deftly worked the laces of the corset he'd tied several hours earlier.

She sat dutifully still. "I wish you wouldn't keep saying that."

"Saying what?" He stretched the laces wide and pulled the corset open. Roselyn inhaled deeply, filling her lungs completely. Jack had the lovely view over her shoulder of her breasts rising and falling as her chest expanded. "Saying that you're not beautiful would be a lie, and I may be many things but I'm not a liar."

Jack stood from the bed, deftly lifting her to her feet with him. He turned her to face him and he looked into her inebriated eyes. He knew that she probably wouldn't remember any of this in the morning. And that was all the more reason why he couldn't, why he wouldn't, take advantage of her.

Like he said earlier, he was many things but lecher and rapist were not among them either. He had a reputation, that was true, but a reputation that he himself had built and cultivated, and at least ninety percent of which was a lie. He liked this woman. She was gutsy and brave and charming besides being beautiful. He hadn't figured out exactly what her father had done to her, but he knew how harsh words from a beloved parent could crush a child's soul, and he would do his best during their time together to make her see she was something special.

"Look at me," he lifted her chin, and watched her try to focus on him. "You are a beautiful, sensual woman. I want to bed you so badly, I ache." He grasped her hand and showed her how much he desired her. "I give you fair warning that I will continue my pursuit..."

Roselyn looked into the pirate's rich, black eyes, and then her gaze slid to his mouth and she watched his lips as he formed words, but she wasn't really listening. She wanted him to kiss her again. Maybe it was the wine–it was definitely the wine–but she liked the way he looked at her. She really liked the way his kiss made her feel: both wanted and pretty. But being pretty was proud, and therefore wicked. Her father had drilled that into her head her entire life. The concept was dangerous, she knew, but the inhibitions she had were slowly drowning, and she liked feeling pretty.

Rose put her finger across his lips and effectively silenced him. "Too much talking, not enough kissing."

This time she initiated the kiss.

Roselyn placed both hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she stood on wobbly tiptoes to place her lips on his. She didn't know how to continue since her entire resume of experience could be summed up in their one previous kiss. Fortunately, her pirate was there to guide her and his arms slid around her waist and he deepened the kiss. This time, she didn't bolt when he pulled her close and she felt his arousal. Soon enough, Roselyn's instincts took over and her hands roamed his skin, down his strong arms and across his broad, well-muscled back. She found the waist band on his breeches and, slowly by degrees, she pulled at his shirt until it came free and allowed her access to his skin.

Jack was overwhelmed. Her soft hands glided up his stomach and curled into the soft hair that feathered his chest. The act nearly ended his resolve. He wanted to have her, it was true, but not because she was weakened by alcohol. This woman was a wonder and he wanted her to choose him when she had all her faculties.

But dear God, it was all he could do to resist her temptation. She was all passion and eagerness, her hands never stopped roaming once she discovered how her body affected certain parts of him.

"Beautiful Roselyn," he whispered into her hair, "how is a man supposed to act like a gentleman with such passion and loveliness before him?"

"But you're not a gentleman, Jack. You're a pirate," she whispered back against his neck, while her hands found the glory that was his backside and now she caressed it lovingly.

Jack chuckled at her easy grasp of the truth. "Ah, but alas, my sweet, I am not such a pirate that I'm a despoiler of drunken virgins who are engaged to missionary ministers." He reached behind him with both hands and clasped her hands in his. He brought them back around to the front and held them to his lips and laid a kiss in each palm. She appeared dismayed that he had put a halt to their passion, so he kissed her lips briefly again.

"Rose, it is nearly killing me not to take your beautiful body right now." He looked down appreciatively. He could see all her curves through the thin cotton of her shift. "But now you need sleep."

She was clearly much too tired to put up any serious protest, so when he led her back to the bed and pulled down the silk covers, she climbed in and sank drowsily into the feather bed, her head on the downy pillows, and she was asleep almost instantly. He covered her and blew out the lantern near the bed. As he stepped away, her hand slipped out and grabbed his.

"Come sleep with me," she murmured, dreamily.

Handsome Jack looked back at the sensual, inviting woman in his bed and his groin ached. How much could his tenuous resolve be expected to withstand?

"Please," she said. He was lost.

He kicked off his boots and pulled his shirt off over his head. His pants fell into a heap on the floor, and he crawled into the bed beside her. She snuggled against him and she fell asleep with his arms around her.

Eventually, Jack fell asleep too, but it was a long time before he could relax enough for that peace to find him.

Chapter Eight

Roselyn opened her eyes to the morning sun streaming through the porthole window. The pirate's bed was warm and comfortable and she languidly stretched her arms over her head and immediately froze.

There was someone else in the bed.

She carefully turned her head and found Jack sleeping next to her. She gently turned her body until she was face to face with him. She didn't remember everything from the night before, but she was fairly confident that they had not made love. However, if her father looked down on her now from heaven, then she was sure he would kill her himself. It was entirely possible that everything he'd ever said about her was true. But, her father was gone and he wasn't in control of her life anymore. Unfortunately, soon enough it would be Rupert.

She had taken charge of her life enough to decide to buy passage to New Providence and seek out her fiancé, but was she brave enough to scrap that plan altogether? It saddened her to know that she could never have the life she wanted with a man like Jack. Pirates did not settle down with minister's daughters and get married. She already knew that he had a certain animosity towards the aristocracy and his family. There was no hope for the two of them off the ship. This was to be a voyage of discovery, and afterward she would tuck it away with only the tender memories to sustain her once she became a minster's wife.

Emboldened by that decision, Roselyn gave herself permission to be a little wanton.

All she knew for sure was that he was easily the most attractive man she had ever seen. She still had her shift on, but he had no shirt–that she could see. Everything else was a mystery.

She dared herself to lift the sheet and peek underneath. She glanced at his face, but he still slept, his beautiful countenance peaceful and dreamy. Slowly, carefully, she lifted the sheet by inches, alternating between looking at his face to make sure he still slept and the growing expanse of his skin. A well muscled chest gave way to a flat stomach as the sheet crept its way down. Just like his mustache, the hair on his chest looked equally soft, but she feared if she stroked his skin and hair, he would wake for sure. The sheet slipped passed his waist and the tan line that so intrigued her before became visible. She knew she should stop and she hesitated. Now or never. She closed her eyes and exhaled to prepare herself. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her eyes came open to see him staring at her.

"Have you seen everything you wanted to?" he drawled with a randy grin.

Her fingers dropped the sheet instantly, the silk fabric fluttered to conceal all that she'd uncovered. "I apologize," she sputtered. Her cheeks bloomed in a bright blush.

He raised both his hands over his head, "I won't stop you. Go ahead, investigate at your leisure," his voice gravelly and sexy with sleep.

"Oh no," she protested and shook her head. "I'm very sorry." She rose to climb out of bed.

He grabbed her by the waist and drew her back into the bed beside him. She watched him warily, not exactly sure if she wanted him to seduce her or not. She knew she wouldn't have the fortitude to stop him if he kissed her again.

"We will be pulling into Nassau today. Do you know where to find your fiancé?"

"I have an address where I sent letters to him, but it was in my trunk," she paused when she realized she no longer had the scrap of paper.

"And your trunk is at the bottom of the ocean," he finished for her. His finger strayed to her collarbone where it skimmed along the ridge there. "How will we find him?"

"We?" she asked, "You're going to help me?"

"I'm certainly not going to abandon you in that town alone. Nassau is Sodom and Gomorrah reborn, and I won't have you wandering around there with no escort."

She tried to ignore his wandering finger for a moment and focus on the words he'd just said. "I did just fine by myself in London on the merchant ship. You don't owe me anything." She made every effort to be indignant, but he was very distracting.

"And look how well you faired on your first voyage." The finger had a mind of its own and down it went as it followed a path between her breasts.

"Well, it's hardly my fault that the ship sank, now is it?" Where was his finger going now? A trail of fire followed in its wake.

"Believe me, if you fall into a bad situation in Nassau, you will be wishing you went down with that ship." He pressed a kiss on her shoulder. Of course, one kiss led to another and then several more connected from her shoulder to the sensitive indention at the base of her throat. "I only want to insure your safety, my beautiful Rose."

"Did you say 'your' Rose?" She was nearly past the ability to speak, but his endearment caught her attention.

"At least for this morning." Jack slid his thigh between hers, laying half on her. "Do you trust me?" he asked her.

Roselyn looked into the well of his black eyes and saw strength of character that she wasn't sure even he suspected he possessed. Why shouldn't she trust him? If he'd wanted to hurt her he'd had ample opportunity the previous day and night. He hadn't harmed her when she first came on board, or in the bathtub or, at her most vulnerable, when she was drunk and willing in his bed. Of course she trusted him.

Go ahead, be wanton, her darker self urged. Father accused you of it enough.

As it turned out, she was perfectly capable of making decisions for her life. Had she known all that was available to her, what the world outside her small English village offered, would she have allowed her father to betroth her to Rupert? Rupert, a man exactly the same as her father, two men cut from the same cloth. How might her life have been different if her mother had lived? Roselyn had never known her. The woman died from a bout of influenza when she was only two. Was her mother the meek and subservient woman her father tried to mold his daughter into?

Did she trust him?

She answered him with a searing kiss that she hoped properly conveyed her desire to continue to unfold all the mysteries her body held. Jack pulled her shift over her head and threw it to the floor. His hands and mouth branded her naked skin with passion.

She had never felt this way. In fact, she hadn't known these feelings were even possible. She only just realized in the last two days the wealth of experiences her father had sheltered from her. Not like any father would allow for this experience per se, but she was finding many things on this voyage to broaden her horizons.

His hands and lips caressed her, and now was not the time to contemplate deep thoughts and what ifs. Jack was magic, the things he made her feel–no wonder her father talked of such things as wicked.

Maybe feeling pretty is wicked, but if this is how pretty feels, then I want to be wicked. Jack made her feel pretty. Actually, Jack made her feel beautiful.

Jack's kisses traveled down from her throat until he found her breast and then a nipple. He drew the rosy bud in his mouth and her body responded, a most scintillating current raced down her body and pooled in the center of her being. He settled his body fully between her legs, his mouth never leaving her breast except when it traveled over to lavish attention on the other one. His hands caressed her, spread her legs wider, kneaded the muscles of her thighs. He raised himself to take her mouth once more, his tongue hot and insisting, his hands spanned her waist and roamed further down to settle on her hips.

"Will you bloom for me, my Rose?" he whispered against her mouth.

She had no idea what he was talking about, but he could have asked her to fly to the moon and she would have agreed. She was completely open to suggestion at this point, as long as she kept feeling this way.

Roselyn nodded, and then gasped as his fingers found her very center. Her legs moved restlessly and her hands grasped the sheets at either side of her. Clever fingers wove their way through the curly hair at her apex, found the secret pleasure point there, and gently rubbed.

"Jack," she called out, her voice husky and low. "Oh my God, Jack."

Roselyn knew this wasn't the same kind of love making she was likely to get from Rupert, especially if his perfunctory kisses were any indication. Jack was a handsome man when clothed in his pirate's garb, but when naked he was breathtaking, magnificent.

Tension mounted in her stomach, in her womb, that she couldn't name and didn't know how to slake. Her hips moved, jerked when he added more pressure and, when she felt one long, masculine finger slide inside her, she let out a strangled, little scream. He withdrew his finger slowly, circling the entrance, and then slid it in again. His thumb massaging her as the pressure built inside. And almost the same instant that he slid in a second finger, the pressure burst and she screamed his name.

Jack observed her, gratified that he had been the first to make Rose bloom. At the same time he mourned her. He knew that his release was not forthcoming. He would have to allow her husband to have that honor, and it angered and saddened him deeply. After the ship docked and they found her fiancée, there was very little likelihood that Handsome Jack would ever see her again, and the prospect made him uncharacteristically melancholy. He would have to give his beautiful Rose to some other man; some other man surely unworthy of her.

If this Rupert was a husband her father had chosen for her, likely he had selected a man of similar nature, and the thought of Rose being trampled under further cruel dictates and punishments made him want to hold her forever. He wanted to protect her from the harshness of a husband like that, of a life that consisted of mashing down her spirit. But he was a pirate, his previous life of no consequence, and she a lady borne of good character. This was not a story that could end in happily ever after.

He kissed her stomach and each hip while she lay panting and settling back to earth. He placed his head on the cradle of her stomach and her fingers found his hair.

"Oh my God," Roselyn whispered, "that was the most amazing thing...I don't have words."

"You're amazing, Rose." Jack really believed it. After all the experienced women he had known, he simply couldn't get past the amazement that this sweet, unspoiled minister's daughter should be the one to wrap up his heart. He rose on his elbows and kissed her breasts reverently, then the hollow of her throat. She placed a hand on each side of his jaw and drew him to her mouth and kissed him deeply. A quick learner, her kiss soon escalated from sweet and gentle, to passionate and desperate.

Jack could feel himself losing control. Unless he ended this immediately he wouldn't be able to stop. He pulled his mouth away from hers and sat up, his rear resting on his heels, still sitting between her legs.

Oh it would be so easy. It would be so good.

"Rose," was all he said before her curious fingers wrapped around his cock. "God! Rose." He grasped her wrist. "You're killing me."

"You're very large. Probably because you're such a big man, but it's not like I have a point of reference." Her eyes fixed on what she held in her hand. "What just happened, what you did to me, that wasn't everything was it?" she asked him.

"No." He gritted his teeth against the sensation of her free hand sliding up his thigh. "There is much more."

"I want it all, Jack."

He wanted to give it to her and his control hung by a thread. "Are you sure? One more kiss, one more inch with that hand, and there's no going back."

Roselyn sat on her knees in front of him. With her hand still gripping his rock-hard cock, she kissed him. Her mouth hot and urgent, her tongue entered his with passion that Jack could only interpret with the part of his body she held in her grasp. It was more than Jack could take. He pressed her back on the bed and tested her center with his fingers, found her even wetter than before.

"Now, Jack," she urged and lifted her hips, her eyes begged for him.

He slowly entered her, her slickness and warmth begged to be plundered. Jack clenched his teeth for control until he reached the barrier and, with exquisite tenderness, he pushed through. If the pain bothered her, she didn't give any sign of it.

He withdrew and slid nearly all the way out. She clutched at his hips and made a mewling sound of protest, clearly not wanting him to go. An entirely unnecessary plea once Jack set the rhythm. He filled her and then retreated only to fill her again and again.

"Jack? Jack!" she cried.

Several more thrusts and Jack's explosive climax followed hers.

They lay in the bed, nestled together, back to front. Jack felt her steady breaths through the rise and fall of her breasts once she drifted back to sleep, her warm exhalations against his arm, her head cradled against his shoulder. This was his woman. He knew this in his gut, in his heart. But, he had just promised to see her to her fiancé. He knew that was the honorable thing to do, but he never wanted to do anything less in his life. Never before had something felt so wrong.

If only there was a way. For the first time in his life, Jack was overcome with regret. Regret for the choices he'd made, the life he'd led. In some ill-thought-out, juvenile quest to prove his father's assertions that he was "no good", and to lick the wounds inflicted from a faithless lover, he had chosen a life of a Corinthian, and that fateful decision so many years ago promised to threaten everything he thought he might now come to hold dear.

Chapter Nine

July 27, 1718

Roselyn stood in the circle of his arms, both of his hands on the wheel of the ship. Around them jostled a flurry of activity as the sailors prepared to bring the ship into port. The old sailor who saved her from the sinking merchant ship had blended into the pirate crew. Finally emerging when Mr. Blake called down that the ship was in sight of their destination, the lovers had spent most of the day in bed. Though much of the time was devoted to making love, they also fed each other, talked, and laughed.

Of all the things that she could have imagined on this journey, Roselyn never imagined that she would dread seeing the harbor of New Providence Island as she did now. How could she have ever conceived that she would fall in love with a pirate? She knew she loved Handsome Jack, the Captain of the pirate ship Neptune's Revenge, with a certainty that brooked no doubt.

She also knew that she would have to let him go because he was a pirate, a man of the sea and adventure, and because she was simply a poor minister's daughter. As much as she wanted to believe his flowery words and compliments, it was difficult. After all, she knew he'd had a great amount of experience flirting with women and he was a lovable rogue till the end. She would keep her adventure on her pirate ship close to her heart and endeavor to live a quiet life with Rupert.

The prospect made her heart ache.

After the great ship had dropped anchor and the rigging lowered, Jack and Roselyn disembarked, leaving the crew on board ready to leave at a moment's notice. Jack and Mr. Blake had decided some scouting was in order before the crew left on leave.

Roselyn gasped at the grizzly sight of three men hanging from gallows just off the pier.

When she looked to Jack for an answer, his reply was cryptic. "It's a warning."

They were able to obtain the address for her fiancé from the first church they came upon in the town. While Roselyn spoke with the vicar, Jack waited outside.

"I'll wait for you here. You don't want lightning bolts striking the church, do you?" he teased.

While he paced, Jack wondered what was going on in the unnaturally quiet pirate capital. He had noticed the unusual activity in and around the port area and it concerned him. Two man-o-war ships flying the British flag were anchored outside the harbor. Using the spy glass, he'd also seen a British flag flying from the Fort, and a French ship burned in the bay.

The quartermaster, Mr. Blake, had also registered the disturbance but, other than an exchange of looks, neither of the men had spoken of it aloud. The Neptune's Revenge's flag, a red banner with a black skull wearing a crown, had been quietly lowered and not replaced with another flag. Jack thought it best not to announce their arrival too loudly for once. Everything inside him said stealth and subtlety were the way to go.

He hadn't seen a single one of his compatriots since entering the city. Usually Nassau teemed with sailors and pirates and other unsavory characters. Used to every street corner being manned by prostitutes and drunks, the city's subdued quiet was unsettling, and a sense of dread spread through him.

"Jack."

He spun around at the sound of his name and saw his friend, Captain Ben Hornigold approaching. "Ben," Jack called out. "What the bloody hell is going on? Where is everyone?"

"There's a new Governor. Some British bloke named Woodes Rogers. He's here to rout us out. He's doing a good job of it too."

"Where did everyone go?" There were so many questions. Jack didn't even know where to begin. "Why are you still here?"

"Charlie Vane set that Frenchie ship ablaze and then blew out of here, firin' his guns and thumbing them off. That was yestereve."

"But what of England or Teach? I can't believe that they turned tail and ran." Those pirates were practically Nassau royalty. Jack couldn't believe they would give up all they owned here.

"That bastard Blackbeard ran north. England's not been here, but he'll run too." Hornigold sounded very confident and clearly loved spreading the gossip.

"If this Rogers fellow is so dangerous, what are you still doing here?"

"He's got pardons for the cap'ns who surrender to 'em. I got nothing left, Jack. My armada is gone, the traitorous, mutinying bastards." Hornigold spit into the street in disgust. "All signed with Blackbeard. What do I have to lose?"

Jack was aghast. "You surrendered?"

"Rogers let me keep my ship and give me a crew if I go hunt down Vane." Hornigold shrugged. "Better'n stretching my neck like those sots at the pier."

"I saw 'em." Jack shook his head in disgust.

"You go surrender, Jack." Hornigold clapped his friend on the shoulder in parting and continued on his way down the street.

"I can't do that...." Jack did have something to lose, if it wasn't already lost. "I'll have to come up with something else."

"Keep your handsome head on yer neck. You'll get the same deal as me, I bet." The turncoat pirate called over his shoulder when he rounded the corner.

"What deal?" Roselyn asked as she strode down the church steps. She peered down the street but Hornigold was gone. "I don't know why you were so worried about me in this town. There's no one here."

"There are very dangerous changes afoot," was all he offered by way of an explanation. He grabbed the first urchin on the street and gave him urgent whispered instructions. He sent the boy away with several coins and a purposeful expression.

Jack offered the lady his arm, and they headed down the walk. He concentrated on conrolling the urge to throw her over his shoulder and race back for the ship. But he knew, as much as he loved and wanted her, he needed to do the best thing for Rose. He would escort her to the fiancé's house and prove to himself that this Rupert was the right man for his Rose.

They found Rupert's little, white house only several blocks away. As they entered the tiny yard, the front door swung open and two doxies stumbled out of the house, laughing brightly. Roselyn stopped and stared with slatted eyes at the two painted women, one with bright-red, hennaed hair and the other a blond. Their breasts were practically falling out of their bodices and their faces were done up with powder and rouge. Her first thought was that Rupert must be ministering to their souls, but that thought quickly extinguished.

"Handsome Jack!" the blond squealed in delight. "We used up the preacher, but we've got plenty left for you!"

"Come back to Wilhelmina's with us, Jack," the red-head cooed, running her hands up Jack's chest in a manner entirely too familiar as far as Roselyn was concerned. "Everybody else's gone and me and the rest of the girls is lonely."

"Cora. Prissy." He nodded to the two women, and Roselyn was pleased to see he deftly removed Cora's hands from his person before the harlot felt the need to grab anything lower than his belt. With his subtle rejection, the two prostitutes noticed Roselyn for the first time.

Cocking her hand on her hip, Prissy asked, "Who's the fancy lady?"

"I am Miss Roselyn Weldon," her tone was dry and hard. "I am Reverend Merickel's fiancée."

The floozies howled with laughter. "Good luck with that dry old fart," Cora crowed.

"Yeah," Prissy chimed in, "I hate to think of the poor woman who has to do him for free."

With that horrible recommendation hanging in the air, the women flounced off, blowing kisses to Jack as they strode from the gate, laughing with contemptuous glee.

With newly minted confidence, Roselyn marched towards the open front door only to find her fiancé standing in the middle of the parlor buttoning his pants, his shirt tails still hanging out. Roselyn gasped in disbelief. This was her fiancé?

"Miss Weldon!" Surprise evident in Rupert's voice as well as his expression. "What are you doing here?"

"I sent a letter informing you I was coming. Father died and I had nowhere to go." Rupert stood there blinking at her so she continued speaking to fill the silence, inane, stupid words she wished she could stop. "I wrote you I was coming. I sent a letter when he died."

"I never got any post. We aren't to be married for another year." Rupert had clearly snapped out of his shock. "You need to return home posthaste."

"Home? I just got here."

"Don't get smart with me, Roselyn," he snapped at her. He seemed to be hitting his stride now. "And just what in tarnation are you wearing? You look like a whore." By now his clothes were put to rights, even the clerical collar was tucked neatly in place.

"I guess you'd know," she hissed back at him.

Behind her, she heard Jack slowly approach the doorway. He snorted at her comment.

"How dare you talk to me in that manner. You know nothing of men's needs." Rupert was in fine minister mode now. All he needed was his pulpit.

"My horizons are being broadened," she retorted, dryly.

"By this man?" Rupert demanded, gesturing to Jack who leaned on the doorjamb watching the scene unfold before him with great interest. "Do you have carnal knowledge of this man? Your father is spinning in his grave."

"Never mind about my father. Aren't you the hypocrite?" Roselyn planted both hands on her hips. She barely recognized the man before her. She had never loved him, but she thought she had at least respected him. She had believed the man to whom she'd been engaged to be a pious man of the cloth, a harsh critic of pleasure in any form. The judgmental, hypocrite before her was not the man she thought she knew. Even if he did still want her, she would refuse to marry him now.

"I will not take a ruined woman to wife," he roared at her. "You have lain with this filthy pirate. No one will have you now." He lifted his hand as if he made to strike her.

Rupert was still screaming at Roselyn, his face turning puce, before he noticed too late that the giant pirate was almost on top of him.

Before the weasely, little man could even get up a good head of steam, Jack pushed away from the door jamb and purposefully strode through the room, tossing furniture out of his way in order to make a straight path to the man. He picked up the pasty skinned bastard by the throat and slammed him up against the wall, the minister's toes dangling a good inch from the floor.

"You will apologize to the lady," Jack spoke with a quiet, terrifying voice. There was no need to yell. He could smell the acrid stench that proved the minister had already pissed himself.

Rupert gasped for air. "I can't marry a fallen woman. I'm a man of the cloth."

"You will refer to her as Miss Weldon," Jack spoke clearly and slowly, "and you will apologize to her." He squeezed his hands a little tighter around the minister's neck. "I can't hear you."

Point in fact, Rupert did make a little squeaking sound when Jack gave him a shake and waved the minister's soft body about.

Roselyn placed her hand on his arm. "You're killing him, Jack." She was thrilled that he had come to her defense, no one had ever intervened during her father's rants and punishments, but she couldn't allow Jack to kill the man in her name. "Let him go. He won't hurt me now."

Jack released the pathetic man from his grip and the minister fell to the floor in a heap, dragging in ragged breaths.

"I'm taking Miss Weldon with me," Jack told the cowering vicar. "Consider your arrangement terminated."

Her pirate took her by the hand and headed for the door, but she pulled her hand free. She smiled to reassure him, and then strode back to her ex-fiancé with a gleam in her eye.

Rupert watched her approach with a leery expression, and visibly flinched when she knelt down next to him on the floor. She pulled back her arm and slapped him with an open hand leaving a very satisfying palm print across his cheek. "That's for all the women you've humiliated, Rupert."

Behind her Jack roared with laughter, his approval of her revenge evident.

Chapter Ten

Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her from the tawdry little house and the spectacle of her fiancé splayed out on this rug. Roselyn couldn't suppress a giggle that bubbled in the back of her throat. She couldn't even tamp it down when she realized she had nowhere to go and no means to support herself now that she found herself stranded in the Caribbean. Jack grinned at her as they rounded the picket fence and burst through the little gate, his teeth white and gleaming under the sensual mustache. Roselyn stomach tightened recalling the tactile knowledge of exactly how that mustache felt against her skin.

"I cannot believe your father wished you to marry that useless prig." Jack's scalawag grin drew down into a scowl. "I can't imagine a man less fitting for you, Rose."

Roselyn didn't wish to disrespect her father, even from the grave, but she couldn't agree more. She was a changed woman, and not just because she'd lost her virginity to a famous pirate. For the first time, she had control over her life. She wasn't marrying that "prig" as Jack called him, a more fitting description she didn't know. She had no idea what she was going to do with her life, or what other outlandish twists were in store, but she was filled with excitement at the possibility like she'd never been before.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him full on the lips. "Thank you."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight against him. "For what?"

"Standing up for me." She kissed his lips again, this time lingering a little longer than before. "No one's ever done that for me before. Ever."

"I am forever at your service," he grinned at her. He took her hand and continued with her along the narrow, dirt lane. "I have a few things to do before the tide this evening."

Roselyn considered her own situation. Right then and there, she vowed her life from this moment forward would be an adventure. "I do, too," she admitted.

Jack raised their clasped hands to his mouth and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles, then pulled a leather pouch from a pocket and wrapped her fingers around it. "You'll need some clothes. You won't be able to run around in just that frock, as lovely as you are in it, forever."

She looked at him with a hopeful glance. "I'd hoped to see what other dresses you had in the hold that might fit. You said there were trunks of them down there."

"Anything you wish, Rose," he grinned and pleasure coursed through her. "Still go to the shops and get everything else you need – under things and bonnets, ribbons and lace and whatever suits your fancy." They came to a crossroads, the intersecting street was much wider and shops with all types of commerce lined the sandy walks. Jack pointed towards several likely buildings. "Right down that way you'll find what you need. I'll come find you in an hour or so and help you tackle anything else you lack."

It occurred to Roselyn that fripperies such as ribbons and lace were a foolish extravagance when she didn't have a house to put them in but, as she shifted in the too-large silk slippers Jack's cabin boy had found for her in the hold, the idea seemed less of an indulgence. Since she no longer owned a single item of clothing that didn't come from the bounty of stolen goods in the Neptune's Revenge, some underclothes and a corset and a chemise or two would be prudent.

"An hour then?" Roselyn squeezed the pouch of coins in her fist.

"Or so," Jack answered and kissed her on the nose before turning and heading the opposite way down the road, away from the shops and docks and further into the heart of the town. He moved quickly, his strides long and purposeful. He glanced back and blew her a kiss before he turned at the next block and disappeared from view.

Roselyn hesitated another minute before she proceeded along the lane and into a feminine domain of shop keepers and seamstresses to attempt to rebuild her wardrobe.

Jack was loathe to leave her alone in the town but, the way things were shaping up, there weren't any pirates left in Nassau to harass her and the rest of the unsavory lot who hadn't fled were laying low. He had to get to his little house to collect the few things he'd need if he intended to leave this profligate life and move back into respectability with Rose. Besides the gold and other treasures he'd stashed, there were papers he'd need when he returned to England.

England.

He puffed out a deep breath and quickened his pace.

England.

The thought of the place, specifically his ancestral home, threatened to give him hives. But his father wasn't there to look down his long, patrician nose at him any longer. The old man couldn't judge him from the grave and his brother, the new earl, had never expressed the same tired sentiments – not when they were children and not in the few letters he'd received from him over the years. Though not lengthy or plentiful, the letters had hinted that his brother knew the truth about Jack and his career at sea and yet Edmund still urged him to return home.

He would much rather have made a comfortable life here in the Caribbean, but that was no longer a possibility. This beautiful island paradise was no longer capable of giving him his desired retirement from piracy. If he wanted Rose, and he wanted her, badly, then home he would go.

He crested a small hill and veered off the road onto a path through a scrubby, wind-blown meadow. Taking the short cut, he hoped to shave valuable minutes from his chore. From that vantage point, he was able to see the smoke from the burning ship and, though he couldn't see the actual bodies of the dead pirates in detail, he could see the shape of them swinging from the gibbets at the harbor. He sped up his pace until he was jogging, the cutlass lashed to his side banged against his leg.

His house came into view, the solid stone of the walls broadcasted strength and comfort that he knew he could no longer find there, or anywhere else on Nassau. He used a hefty, iron key to unbolt the door and, when it swung open, he was relieved to find his house just as he'd left it six months prior. The home was cluttered and comfortable with maps and charts spread over thick, wooden tables, exotic trinkets from his travels spread about the rooms. He paid little attention to the front parlor as soon as he recognized that nothing had been disturbed. The location of his house was not a secret; everyone in Nassau knew where he could be found and that common knowledge had worried him. Perchance, once the new governor had begun the raiding and hangings which had cleared out the harbor, the scalawags in town had been too intent on saving their own necks or turning traitor to worry about raiding his coffers.

In the kitchen, moving the cast iron oven was much harder to do alone, but he managed by wedging himself between it and the wall. Grunting and swearing, he scooted the massive oven the several feet required in order to get to the false stone in the floor underneath. Using a thick butcher knife as a lever, he pried the stone loose and reached into the dark hole with both hands to hoist out a bulky strongbox which he plunked on the floor with a weighty thud.

"Praise the heavens," Jack muttered in relief. The safe was heavy. It had to be. It held his entire future.

He trotted down the hall and stripped the bed of its linens. He took the pillowcases in hand and headed back to the kitchen.

Once empty of the gold, jewels and other treasures, Jack dropped the box back into the hole and set the kitchen to rights. There was no point in making it obvious to anyone who came looking for him that he'd been there.

Jack doubled up the linen pillowcases. A person's future was a substantial weight – heavier than he'd expected it to be. Perhaps he miscalculated and should have brought a cart. Well, there was no time for it now. He dropped the bags on the floor of the hall and headed back into the bedroom. He pulled the documents he needed from a less secure, but still well hidden, secret compartment in the headboard of his bed. A few trinkets and small keepsakes were added to his pockets.

One last glance around the room and he was ready to go.

Back to collect Rose and then he was home free.

"It was certainly convenient of you to collect so much evidence for me. I always find that task to be so mundane and tedious."

"Fuck." Jack didn't recognize the voice but he knew who it was before he turned around. "Governor Rogers. I had hoped to avoid this introduction."

"Well that would have been a shame." Rogers shifted his weight to one side and adjusted a lace cuff with an air of complete ease. It was probably the five armed soldiers who had come up behind him that allowed him the luxury. "Then you wouldn't have had the opportunity to partake in the hospitality Nassau has become so famous for of late."

"Yes," Jack nodded. His fingertips caressed the handle of his cutlass. "Unfortunately, the lodgings I noticed at the harbor are somewhat less hospitable than I've grown accustomed to."

Rogers gestured at Jack's hand next to the scabbard. "I wouldn't suggest you act hastily, Jack, unless you wish to proceed directly from capture to execution. Although, it doesn't matter to me either way if we hang you in town or shoot you dead in your own home."

Jack pulled his hand away and he raised it to his side, palm up. He couldn't give Rogers any reason to kill him here. There was so much more at stake than just his life now.

Chapter Eleven

Roselyn wiggled her toes in a new pair of leather half boots. She hadn't expected to have such luck finding what she needed in the pirate capital, but apparently there was a thriving industry in women's clothing in Nassau. Evidently, the abundance of houses of ill repute and lusty sailors looking for presents for their wives and mistresses afforded enough business for even some competition among the milliners and seamstresses in town. Although, not all the clothes were what one would have expected in London. Roselyn did a considerable amount of blushing when she found the "small clothes" section and discovered the items rather more risqué than she was accustomed to. The proprietress of the shop helped her pick out a few suitable items and even convinced her to add something pretty and flimsy to her pile of purchases.

Laden with packages in both hands, Roselyn stepped out on to Nassau's main thoroughfare. She glanced along the street, first one direction and then the next, unsure of what to do with herself now. The shopkeepers offered to have a boy run her purchases home for her, but she'd refused having no idea at what address to have them delivered. Once again, she wondered why Jack had been so wary of allowing her to come into Nassau by herself. The streets were relatively empty. A few women bustled along the walk to and from what appeared to be a grocer's, and a couple of workmen toted some lumber and tools towards the harbor. There weren't even as many children out and about as she'd expected.

Even as she finished the thought, a lad barreled around the corner and skidded to a halt in an effort to avoid running her over completely. Nevertheless, her carefully wrapped parcels tumbled to the ground when they collided.

"Sorry, miss." The boy reached down and helped to gather the bundles strewn along the ground.

"No harm done," Roselyn smiled at the boy. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight. His skin dark brown from the sun, his crooked smile flashed white. "Where are you going to in such a hurry?"

"They caught another pirate," he told her and a flash of anxiety mixed with excitement slid across his face. "I gotta go tell Big Jim."

Sweet lord, don't let it be her pirate. "Who?"

"Big Jim," he repeated, "the Harbor Master."

"No, who is the pirate?" Oh please, oh please, oh please.

"It's a big fish this time." The boy nodded his head in agreement with himself. "Not as big as if they'd nabbed Teach before he hightailed it out of here, but still, bigger than Horton or Ching."

Roselyn blinked several times in rapid succession while the boy rambled off a who's who of captured and escaped pirates. She grabbed the boy by the arm to make him stop. "Who was it?" she asked a bit louder.

"Handsome Jack," he told her with authority.

"Oh my God." Roselyn's fingers gripped the packages tighter and her knees felt liquid. What was she to do now? She couldn't allow Jack to die. A heady image of him propped on his elbow, his tan skin in stark contrast against the white bed sheets, grinning at her with desire in his dark eyes flittered through her mind. "How long ago did they capture him? Where? Did they hurt him?" So many questions...

"I saw them dragging him out of his house just a few minutes ago." The boy watched her with interest.

"Dragging him!" Roselyn exclaimed. They were dragging her lover off to his death while she shopped for clothes to tempt him. How unbearably frivolous of her.

"Only 'cause of the chains around his ankles."

"Oh," she moaned. The liquid feeling in her legs increased. She glanced around but there was nowhere to sit. She needed to calm down and think. Think Roselyn, this is no time for missish panic. "What is your name?"

"Amos."

"Do you want to help Jack?" At this point, she needed all the help she could get.

"That's why I was going to Big Jim." He reached over and took half her bundles and jerked his head in the direction of the harbor. Together they headed off at a fairly quick pace along the empty street.

"What will Big Jim do?"

The boy raised a shoulder in a bony shrug. "I don't know, but he and Handsome Jack is friends."

"I wonder if anyone aboard Neptune's Revenge knows yet." Surely Blake and the other men would come to his rescue if they knew. They would, wouldn't they? Surely, there was honor among thieves.

It turned out Jack's crew didn't know, but Big Jim sent a courier out to the vessel right away with the news. From the office of the Harbor Master, she could see the crew streaming off the ship like rats and rowing to the pier. Certainly with so many loyal men, Jack would be rescued.

Oh please, oh please, oh please. The mantra ran repeated under all of her other thoughts like the chorus of one of her father's church hymns, a silent and desperate plea.

Big Jim it turned out was an understatement. Roselyn shook the hand of the biggest man she'd ever laid eyes on after Amos sputtered out the alarming news of Jack's arrest.

"I'm Big Jim," he'd told her. Big? More like humongous or gargantuan. His voice boomed through the small office, deep and sonorous, and tempered her panic with a sense of his command and capability.

"Roselyn Weldon," she answered back. "I'll do anything to help Jack."

Big Jim looked her over with an appraising eye. His review of her wasn't lascivious, instead it seemed as if he was taking her into account and assessing any skills that could be used later. "Can you shoot?" he asked.

"No."

"Any good with a knife?"

"No." She shuddered at the thought.

Big Jim sighed. "Can you ride at least?"

Roselyn deflated. "No." She was useless, irretrievably and hopelessly useless. If Jack died because of her complete lack of skills, well, she'd never forgive herself.

"Who are you exactly?" Big Jim asked.

Who was she anymore? Clearly, she was a woman with no useful skills. Reciting the books of the New Testament probably couldn't help save the man she loved. "I'm no one. Jack saved me when my ship sank. I was coming here to marry your minister."

Big Jim looked at her with distaste she was certain signified her complete lack of helpfulness. "You're the minister's fiancée? You were going to marry that prat Merickel?"

"Not anymore." She sighed. There had to be something she could do to help.

"Good," Big Jim boomed. "That man is a real horse's ass. I can tell by looking at ya, you deserve better than that one."

Roselyn smiled, heartened. "Really, I want to help rescue Jack. He's helped me so much..." She couldn't finish the sentence. She wanted to tell Big Jim and his gentle, smiling eyes just how much Jack had saved her and how much she loved him, but that seemed foolish.

"Well, you've given me an idea." Big Jim didn't have the chance to elaborate before the Neptune's Revenge's crew burst through the door. They all ignored Roselyn while they loudly discussed a plan. Roselyn breathed deeply and urged herself not to give up hope.

"Have no fear, Miss," the Quartermaster told her with a squeeze to her shoulder. "The Revenge crew is the best there is. We've gotten out of worse."

Oh please, oh please, oh please.

Chapter Twelve

Roselyn smoothed her palms over the borrowed dress. Apparently, Big Jim had a wife, Little Bess, whom Roselyn didn't find to be little, necessarily, but next to Big Jim, everyone was little. Bess had showed up at her husband's office right after she'd heard the news of Jack's capture. Apparently, Little Bess was as fond of Jack as her husband was, so she was more than willing to help Roselyn dress for her part in the rescue.

The gingham material of the shirtwaist depressed her. Although, it occurred to her that in the plain, checked, cotton dress, her former fiancé would have found her perfectly acceptable. Even her father would have allowed it. Perversely, she wanted nothing more than to slide back into the gorgeous lilac silk Jack had found for her, the dress that made her feel pretty and sensual and loved.

"Now remember to walk real slow once you get inside so you don't jingle," Little Bess told her while she finished the buttons up the back.

"Right," Big Jim agreed with a nod of his massive head. "That'd ruin everything."

"I'll remember," Roselyn promised. How could she forget? She was mildly terrified that if she moved too quickly one of the knives sown into the hem or waistband would stab her. Besides, it was hard enough to walk with loaded flintlock pistol strapped to her thigh.

"Here's the book." Amos handed her the only bible he could find in the lawless pirate harbor.

"Are you ready, miss?" Blake and a few others of the pirate crew remained at the Harbor Master's office. The others had gone back to prepare the ship or had already taken up their positions along the route.

Roselyn nodded. She didn't want to think too much about her role in the breakout – it would only make her nervous, and what she had to do was much too important to get stage fright now.

Amos accompanied her on the walk to the jail. His chatter calmed her even though she couldn't listen to his words, the lilting sound of his Caribbean accent smoothed over the nerves she sought to soothe.

The boy pointed to a squat, stone building. "There it is."

Roselyn knew she didn't have to concern herself with the soldiers outside the post but the ten or fifteen of them made her nervous anyway. Amos walked with her to the door.

"Remember," the boy whispered to her, "these soldiers will all be gone when you and Jack come out, so head right for the ship."

Roselyn gave a jerky nod. "Stay with me." Her armpits were damp and she couldn't blame it on the Caribbean humidity. Just breathe, Roselyn, just breathe.

"Hello, pretty lady." A soldier moved to her side and walked with them the length of the walkway to the door. He was of an age with her father, but there was nothing paternal about the man. The way he looked at her made her skin crawl. "Pretty, pretty lady. What brings you to our dirty jail?"

"She come for the hanging, I bet," said a fat soldier who looked even sweatier than Roselyn felt. She studiously ignored the man's heartless comments and concentrated on gliding, jingle-free, towards the stockade.

"How can I help you, miss?" Standing just inside the open doorway, the soldier who addressed her was young and tall, and he had more epaulets on his jacket than the other men. He looked disdainfully past her shoulder to the soldiers in the yard.

"I'm here to minister to the prisoner," Roselyn said with as much serene dignity as she could muster under the circumstances. "I hope to save his soul before you mete out his punishment." Save his soul and his beautiful neck.

"The boy I know, but I don't believe you've been here before." The young man squinted at her like he could see into her heart and new she was lying. That's your father talking. He can't see anything.

"I am Miss Weldon, Reverend Merickel's fiancée." It was only a lie for the last several hours. She had been the reverend's fiancée for longer than she hadn't been. "I've helped many lost souls find redemption before they meet their final reward. No matter what the man's crime, he deserves to know his maker before he dies." Amos sidled nearer the man in charge.

"Oh, let her go, Major Hansen," the lecherous old soldier told his superior while he ogled her. "Let the last thing he sees be a pretty piece."

The young major shot the man a distasteful glare. "I'm not sure that's wise, miss. The prisoner is a dangerous and desperate man."

Roselyn suspected he was feeling very desperate, indeed. "I'm not afraid, officer. The saving of souls is often a dangerous and desperate occupation." Roselyn kept his gaze, schooling her features into a passive and benign expression she hoped belied her own feeling of desperation roiling in her stomach.

Finally Major Hansen nodded and stepped aside to allow her entry. He took her elbow in a courtly gesture to escort her deeper into the jail. "The boy must remain outside. For your safety, I won't allow you in the cell. You should be able to conduct your business from a chair a relatively safe distance away."

Well, that's not going to work.

"I'll wait for you out here," Amos assured her and shook her hand.

The hallway seemed excessively long, and the pistol strapped to her thigh was wiggling its way further and further down her leg. Pretty soon she'd have to clench her knees together just to keep it from clanking to the floor. They rounded a dark corner and, there at the end of the hall, was Jack's cell. A barred window situated high on the wall, too high for a prisoner to see out and too small to wiggle through, afforded enough light for Roselyn to see her pirate.

Barren of any furniture, Jack sat on the floor of his cell, his back against the wall. His long, black hair hung loose across his face and it was several seconds before he acknowledged their presence approaching down the hall. He kicked out one leg in an overtly relaxed pose and scooped his hair back with one hand to reveal dried blood on his jaw line and his neck. Roselyn barely suppressed a gasp. At least he wasn't chained. His eyes flashed fire when his gaze met hers and then he was immediately sullen and withdrawn again as he glared at the major with open antagonism.

"This young lady has come to offer your soul succor." The major settled a wooden chair a good five feet from the bars of his cell – too far for the prisoner's grasp should he mean her harm and too far for Jack's skillful fingers should he wish to caress her. "You are to act in a gentlemanly manner to her while she is here. Am I clear?"

Jack snorted and remained seated across the room.

"I'll just wait for you over here, Miss Weldon." Major Hansen indicated a shadowed corner across the room.

Frustration flashed across Jack's face.

"Oh, sir, that won't do," Roselyn placed the bible reverently on the wooden chair. "Mr...Handsome Jack needs privacy to come to grips with God, don't you agree?"

Major Hansen's eyebrows met in consternation. "Miss Weldon, I have to insist that I remain – for you safety. If anything should happen to you, Reverend Merickel would not be a happy man."

You'd be surprised. "If you were in this man's place," Roselyn gestured with a sweep of her arm, "you'd want some privacy."

The major looked from Roselyn to Jack and back again, clearly unsure how he should continue. "Ummmm.... I don't know." Roselyn willed him to do what she said. Time was of the essence if the plan was to go off without a hitch.

"Oh for Christ's sake," Jack burst out, rising to his feet. "I'm not going to hurt her. How the hell could I behind these bars?"

Major Hansen glared at Jack before facing Roselyn. "I'll be right in my office up front. I'll be able to hear if you scream. Don't approach the bars, Miss Weldon. He may act perfectly gentlemanly but he's a filthy, lying pirate who will do anything to escape – even use you as a hostage if necessary."

Roselyn kept her victory smile in check. "Of course, Major Hansen. I'll be very careful." She remained steadfast, her hand gripping the back of the chair so hard her knuckles turned white until Major Hansen's footstep faded completely.

"What are you doing here, you crazy woman?" Jack was already at the bars with his right arm extended towards her when she turned from the sound of Major Hansen's retreat. His grasping fingers hooked her skirt and, with a little giggle, she let him pull her to him. They twined their arms through the bars and managed a deep kiss even while the iron pressed tightly against their faces.

"I am part of Plan A," she told him when they finally came up for air.

"You shouldn't be here," Jack told her before he pressed his lips to hers again.

"But if I didn't come how would you ever get this?" Roselyn gave a little shimmy until she heard a thud on the stone floor. With a broad smile, she took a side-step. The skirt of her dress swayed enough that Jack saw the gun on the floor.

Jack bent quickly, scooped up the gun, and shoved it in the back waistband of his trousers.

"You're the loveliest jail breaker I've ever had the pleasure of being sprung by." Jack chuckled, the familiar sound shimmering over her body in the most delightful way.

"I suspect that's not saying much," Roselyn teased. "I've seen your regular crew." She emphasized her point with a comical shudder.

"True." He nodded. "I've rarely ravished my accomplices in gratitude either." He squeezed her waist.

"Ow! You won't get to ravish this one either if you stab me to death."

Jack loosened his grip. "That little quip calls for all kinds of bawdy comments."

"We don't have time." Roselyn slid her finger into a hole at the sash of her dress and withdrew a throwing knife which she promptly handed through the bars. She did the same with four more in the hem of her dress.

"Good Lord, woman." Jack slid the knives in his boot. "What else you got in there?

"Just one other thing." Feeling quite coy, she enjoyed seeing Jack's eyes widen when she dipped her hand down the bodice of her dress and pulled out the cell key.

"How?"

"Amos."

"Amos is with you? Who else?" Jack slid the key soundlessly into the cell door and, with concentrated slowness, swung the door open enough to slip out.

"Big Jim, Little Bess, Blake, and some of the other men from the crew. The rest are back preparing the Revenge."

Jack drew her to him, her body finally flush against his without the hindrance of the jail bars between them. "You don't have anything else lethal or poky in there, do you?"

Roselyn giggled again. The man made her giddy. She shook her head. This kiss was much more satisfying.

"How did you know to find Big Jim?" He asked and took her hand. He led her to the hall way where they backed flush against the wall so he could peer around the corner.

"Amos knew. I had no idea."

Jack chuckled again. "Amos! And how did you come to know Amos?"

"Quite by accident I assure you."

"You'll have to tell me everything later. After I've given you your reward." When he ogled her and raised his eyebrows suggestively it affected her in a completely different way than when the repulsive soldiers outside did the same thing.

"You promise?"

Jack snorted and then crushed her against the wall in a brief but mind numbing kiss. "You'd have made a lousy preacher's wife, my buxom rose."

Roselyn knew her happiness must be evident on her face. How she loved this man, this pirate, her pirate.

"What's the signal?"

"Big Jim said we'd know it when we heard it." Right on cue, a roar like a cannon blast sounded outside.

"There we go." Jack stuck his head around the corner. "Come on."

Excitement surged through her body. Roselyn had never been so exhilarated. Major Hansen was nowhere to be seen when they reached the outer office. Gray smoke poured in through the windows and she could see the flames of a burning building through the open doorway.

"They blew up the powder stores!" Jack hooted.

Outside, the flames shot so high from the outbuilding some of the palms trees had caught fire, too. Another blast rocked the compound sending debris flying. She was sure she screamed but the roar of the fire and yelling men drowned her out completely. Jack pulled her further away from the chaos, his arm draped over her head to protect her from the fallout.

"Here! Over here!" Amos appeared seated on a mule and holding the reins of a horse. Tied to the saddle horn of a stallion were two white bags.

"Good man." Jack clapped the smiling boy on the back. Roselyn knew the boy must be feeling very proud of himself.

She gave the boy a kiss on the cheek. "Are you having fun?"

"Best time ever." Amos' grin was epic. Roselyn nodded in agreement.

Jack swung a leg over the saddle and pulled her up behind him. Amos followed behind when Jack spurred his stallion into a gallop.

Roselyn marveled that the escape had gone so smoothly. She wasn't sure what she'd expected but certainly more of a fight from the soldiers.

"Hold tight, Rose," Jack called over his shoulder. "Here they come."

A glance behind them confirmed a phalanx of soldiers had just joined the chase with Major Hansen in the lead. Amos peeled off and headed down a side street, but Jack stayed the course down the main drag of town. Cresting a hill, Roselyn could see the harbor. The Revenge looked poised to sail at a moment's notice.

A shot whizzed past their heads, then another. "Hurry, Jack, they're gaining."

"Almost there," he answered back, "keep your head down, sweetheart."

They were close enough to the harbor now that she could smell the water. But the soldiers were also near enough behind them that she could hear the labored breathing of their horses. Another shot fired off now would hit them for certain. Roselyn closed her eyes and clung to Jack's back, her fingers laced around his chest.

Jack yanked the reins and the horse's feet skidded over the cobblestones. She yelped, certain her brief career as a jail-breaking accomplice was over. With her head pressed against his back, she felt Jack's laugh rather than heard it, the deep rumble vibrating through his body.

"I love you, Jim," Jack yelled and raised his arm in a salute.

Roselyn risked lifting her head to glance behind them. Huge carts loaded with casks and crates lumbered into the street cutting off the pursuing soldiers. Big Jim gave a subtle nod in their direction before turning his attention to the cart drivers. All the yelling of directions and the horses bucking created a scene of total chaos that Big Jim managed to subtly make even more complicated.

By the time the horses clattered over the boards at the pier, Roselyn knew they were home free. Amos trotted up seconds later and the rest of the landed crew from the Revenge were already waiting for them with the boats. With no time to lose, Jack got them back to the ship in great haste – Amos included.

Only, it wasn't Neptune's Revenge that bobbed in the bay where they'd left her. Roselyn looked out across the water and spied a different ship in its place, the Sea Rose flying the Union Jack.

"Sea Rose?" she asked him.

Her pirate smiled at her, a scoundrel's gleam in his eye and a rogue's smile on his lips. "The captain named her after his lover."

She stared at him quizzically.

"The time has come, sweet Rose. The world's changing and I'm changing with it. It's time for me to go home."

"What's at home that you don't have here? I thought this was your life." A little spark lit in her chest and flickered with hope.

"Respectability is home, in England," he told her on the skiff that took them back to the ship. "I'm going to need respectability when I get there."

"Why? Are you afraid of what your father will say?" she asked after the sailors pulled her into the makeshift swing to the deck of the ship.

"My father's dead. My brother is earl now and I don't give one whit what he thinks," he told her matter-of-factly. "I need the respectability for my wife and my children."

"Is this wife and children waiting for you in England then?" The flicker of hope died out.

He gazed at her and shook his head when he gave the order to cast off and a flurry of activity erupted on deck. Jack steered her to his cabin.

"You're getting married then?" A giggle bubbled in her throat, confidence and hope building again.

"If my Sea Rose will have me." Jack closed his cabin door, and bolted the lock. The giggle did escape when he knelt in front of her. "Miss Weldon, Roselyn, I have a name that's still good, and more money than Midas. And, I give you my heart."

She pulled him to his feet and answered him with a long, sweet kiss.

"If your name's not Jack, then what is it?"

The pirate dipped a low bow before her. "Honorable John Wallingham, brother to the Earl of Harrington."

"So, John," she purred to her new fiancé, "Do you want to play cards? I still have a lot of questions."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm fairly sure that I'm not going to want to answer many questions," he teased.

"Too bad," she said, loosening the laces of his shirt, "because we're playing by Pirate Rules."

The End

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Wonder what happened to Jack and Roselyn's children?

Lady Belling's Secret

The first in the Secret Series is available in print at Amazon.com

Chapter One

"Thomas? Is that really you?"

In fact, it was. Thomas had not yet cleared his solicitor's office doorway before the stunning redhead nearly launched herself at him from across the well-appointed lobby.

"You are addressing the Earl of Harrington, miss." The solicitor was a stuffy blowhard, as all good solicitors surely must be.

"I know exactly who he is," the redhead declared. She beamed at him from less than an arm's length away.

Thomas opened his mouth to say he was sorry he couldn't say the same for her, though he would be more than pleased to make her acquaintance, when her identity struck him like a lightning bolt. "Frankie? Oh my God."

"How long have you been back?" She smiled at him, all teeth and perfect lips. Thomas suspected it was her glorious smile that reminded him who she was. Once he knew it was her, he was flabbergasted that he hadn't recognized her instantly, but it had been five years—five years which had treated her extraordinarily well. "Don't tell me you've been back in London for days and didn't come home because of what happened." She took a step back and her excitement paled.

"Of course not. I docked last night. I was going to come to the house today." He ran a hand through his hair and made an effort not to ogle.

"I certainly hope so, because if Mama found out you had arrived in town without coming to see her, she'd flay you." She reached out a long-fingered hand and touched his coat sleeve. Her grin had faded not one bit. She was beautiful. She'd always been a pretty girl, but now she was a lovely, lovely woman.

A little blonde stepped up next to Frankie with her hand extended. "Good to see you home safely, Thomas."

"Miss Sinclair! This is such a surprise. I surely hadn't expected such a greeting at my solicitor's this early in the morning."

"I just can't believe you're home," Frankie repeated, shaking her head.

"Yes, yes, he's home indeed." The impatient voice of the solicitor broke through the happy reunion. "I have a very busy day, Miss Sinclair. I don't have time to dawdle between appointments."

Thomas had forgotten what a spitfire Frankie's friend was until she turned and gave Mr. Berger a look. "Certainly, sir, I'll be with you in a moment. Frankie, you needn't stay with me. I can take care of what I need to without you."

"Are you certain?" Frankie asked, hope filling her voice.

"Absolutely. If you're here with me, you'll drive me crazy fidgeting and wishing you were elsewhere. You visit with Thomas. I'll find you later."

Thomas knew his grin was enormous. "Superb. You're the one who can help me with my next errand."

"Are you sure you want me?" Francesca asked. Her eyes filled with hope.

"Will you be able to control yourself in my carriage?" He grinned at her, pleased that his jest was taken in the spirit it was intended when she flashed her toothy smile back at him.

"Miss Sinclair? I really do have a very busy day." Mr. Berger made a grand, sweeping gesture towards his office.

Frankie kissed her friend on the cheek. "Thank you. I'll see you at home later." She linked her arm through Thomas's, and he swung her out the door.

"I was so sorry to hear about your brother," Frankie told him and squeezed his arm. Thomas raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, I wasn't sorry exactly, but that's not a very nice thing to say. When I noted that the accident couldn't have happened to nicer people, Mama lectured me for over an hour."

Thomas grasped her about the waist—a tiny waist, he duly noted—and set her up in his high phaeton. He snapped the reins, and they were off, gamboling down Chancery Lane headed for St James Square. Silence stretched for a few long moments while Thomas navigated the carriage through the busy morning traffic. Most of ton society would still be in bed for hours yet, but the working class of London was busy going about their business.

He glanced at Francesca's face and could almost see the wheels spinning in her head while he suspected she was weighing her options of what to say next. Of course, he could ease her mind and tell her that all was forgiven, that he never thought of the incident anymore, but that would be a lie.

"So what is this errand?" Apparently, she wasn't prepared to dive into murkier waters yet. That was fine. Thomas had time.

"It's about the house." He turned the horses onto Upper Brooks Street. His home loomed at the end of the block, a giant white-and-gray stone building. It hunkered there, regal and important, as if it had a more strenuous job than holding down the dirt. "I can't very well have it torn down, even though it is a monument to my father's desperation for status."

Frankie turned on the seat and gazed at him in shock. "You can't really mean you want to tear it down? I understand your feelings, but it's a beautiful house regardless."

He slowed the horses as he approached the front. Already a lad from the stables waited at the walk for his return. Thomas took in the façade and tried to appraise it with an unjaded eye. From an architectural standpoint it was a beautiful building. His mother and father would have demanded no less from their London residence. But, unlike his parents, Thomas had no love for the bricks and stone that made up the three stories of Wallingham House.

"I think I understand how you feel." Frankie's tone was soft and quiet, soothing. "But it's your house now. You can do anything you want with it. It would be a shame, though, to let him win. Wouldn't it?"

Thomas pulled his eyes from the second-story corner window that had been his when he stayed there and turned to the lady on the seat next to him. Her eyes were such a vivid shade of kelly green they mesmerized him for a moment until she blinked and he pulled himself out of his reverie. He hopped down from the carriage and extended his hand to her. "I guess it would." He smiled at her, and the concern in her eyes lessened.

"So how can I help?"

"If it's not to be demolished, then I need to make it mine."

Frankie brightened. "Oh. Can I help redecorate?"

His butler swung open the massive oak door, revealing the foyer and the first of the sculptures and paintings which had been his mother's obsession. Thomas followed Frankie down the hall, staying close behind her as she surveyed each objet d'art. Her scent, a beguiling combination of rosemary and lemon, lingered behind her, urging him to press his nose to her hair.

"You know, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've been here," Frankie told him, "which is funny considering the amount of time you spent in ours."

"Even after I left?" He slipped a hand to the small of her back, a gesture which should have been entirely innocent yet felt anything but. He could feel the flex of her hips and spine as she continued her stroll, and the intimacy of that sensation warmed him.

"Especially after you left." She turned to face him, and Thomas had to step back in order to avoid her breast grazing his arm. What a shame, really, since at this very moment he had a great deal of curiosity about Frankie's breasts. "There was no way Mama was going to support your mother socially after that, and I quite agreed with her."

"Your mother never said anything in her letters." The duchess's letters had been few and far between, but still as frequent as one would have expected considering there was a war and he was at sea much of the time.

"Well, she wouldn't have, would she?"

No she wouldn't. The duchess had been his most stalwart protector. Thomas had long known where the Belling family's loyalties lay. Even after leaving on a bad note, he'd still believed that he would be welcomed back into that family upon his return. That knowledge was what had kept him sane when the cannonballs were flying. If he'd not had them... Thomas shuddered. There would have been nothing to live for.

"What should I do with all this..." Thomas waved his hand in a sweeping gesture, encompassing all the nonsense his mother amassed, "...stuff?"

"Is the whole house like this?"

"Indeed." He steered her into the front parlor where there was no shortage of useless items for her to assess, then he turned to the patiently waiting butler. "Masters, have someone bring tea and something to eat. I'm starving."

"Right away, my lord." His man turned on his heel with a nod. Masters and the rest of the household staff may have been the finest part of his inheritance.

"Actually, I quite like this piece." Frankie stood in a shaft of light, her back to him and the doorway. She tilted her head to the side as if to change the light on the watercolor landscape in front of her. A long tendril of auburn hair escaped the knot at the back of her head and, as Thomas watched, fascinated, it slowly slipped around the nape of her neck then curled along her collarbone. She turned her head and smiled at him. "Are you dead set on ridding the house of everything?"

Thomas blinked. "I'll leave that up to you, I think."

She nodded in confirmation. "I like this one. You should keep it."

Together, they perched on the god-awful furniture, drank tea and nibbled on biscuits and pastries, and studiously avoided all the important topics of conversation that would have to be tackled eventually. Frankie asked after his war experiences, and Thomas provided bland details, told her he was never in danger. The looks of both concern and, after, relief warmed him as much as the scant contact they'd had earlier. It made the lie worth it.

Francesca laid her tea cup on the table. "I can't say I'm sorry your family is gone. Perhaps that sentiment will award me a seat in hell, but their passing brought you home safe to us." Frankie paused then continued barely over a whisper. "Mama fretted so. I fretted."

"It was never my intention to make you worry, you know. There were many reasons I left."

Frankie's lips spread in a wan smile. "I know." She shook her head. "You must be feeling quite overwhelmed with all you have to take over."

She didn't know the half of it. Between the houses, the estates, and investments, not to mention his brother's gambling markers... "I would say that I'm a bit at sea with the whole thing, but the irony would be too much. Since they were buried before I returned, that's one less thing for me to make a decision on. Of course Father never expected me to have any of this, such as it is. Fortunately, his secretary is competent, so I'll figure it all out eventually."

She reached across the space and laid her hand on his forearm. "I am absolutely certain that is true. Of course, Christian will help any way he's able."

Thomas had been able to count on his best friend, Frankie's brother, for anything. "I have plans." Granted, they had been thinly sketched, but he did have plans, and they seemed to be coming together better than he'd ever imagined.

"You know, Christian is going to be absolutely fierce when he finds out I saw you first." Her smile took on a decidedly impish glee. "I can't wait."

Thomas was excited about seeing Christian and the duchess, too. But not right now. He was as surprised as anyone would be that he didn't want to share his time with anyone but Frankie.

"Do you want to see the rest of the house?" He extended a hand to her, and she slipped her fingers into his palm. She rose from the settee with fluid poise. Francesca had been a tall girl, gangly and often awkward. No longer. Coltish gawkiness had dissolved into lithe, willowy grace.

He led her from room to room, floor to floor. Frankie schooled him in the latest styles and fashions in interior decorating. Thomas didn't care one single bit about moldings and wallpaper and the vast differences between chintz and silk, or stripes versus floral prints. What he did care about, and what kept him absolutely riveted to the conversation, was the exhilarating, unsettled feeling that had grown in his belly and steadily moved down to his groin as they walked the floors of his parents' home. Like a seventeen-year-old boy, he found himself scheming as they moved along, trying to maneuver himself in position to come into physical contact with her.

"I think this room would be very interesting with an Egyptian theme. What do you think?" she asked him. Before he could process the question, she was already describing the scene as she saw it, the furniture, upholstery and bric-a-brac.

"Sure," Thomas replied, certain that whatever harebrained scheme she came up with in regards to his home would still be a far sight better than the dry mausoleum his mother had assembled.

"Do I have a budget?" she wondered as they headed up the stairs to the family apartments.

"I hardly think it prudent to give you free rein," he said, recalling some of the epic battles the childhood Frankie had waged with her father over her allowance. "Be reasonable is all I ask."

At the landing, Thomas turned them to the right and into the bedrooms he and his brother used as children. Should it bother him that nothing in these rooms meant anything to him? In fact, with the exception of the window and the massive tree outside whose limbs facilitated countless nighttime escapes, nothing seemed familiar enough to claim as his own.

Frankie wandered about the rooms, silent and suddenly pensive, as if the excitement had leached out of her. Her fingers slid across the top of a bureau then across the smooth counterpane on the bed as she took in the contents of the room.

"What do you want to do with these rooms?" she asked, her tone so gentle it unnerved him.

"Gut them. Take everything out. All the family rooms."

"Oh, Thomas, I'm so sorry." She walked swiftly across the carpet towards him. "For everything."

"This wasn't your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry your father was such a bastard and your mother was so cold. I'm sorry your brother was rotten." Tears filled her eyes, making them impossibly green and shimmery. She choked on a sob. "But mostly, I'm so sorry about what I did. I'm so sorry I made you leave. Will you ever forgive me?" Frankie flung herself, sobbing, in his arms.

For the first time ever, Thomas didn't feel completely alone in his house.

About the Author

Amylynn read her first romance novel in 2008 after being a lifelong literary snob. By the time she was done, she was hooked.

Amylynn is an Arizona native and lives in the same house her husband owned before they were married. Amylynn fears she will never call another state home unless someone tells her husband there are forty nine others to choose from. In reality, she'd settle for a walk-in closet.

Her family consists of the aforementioned husband, two beautiful children, two dogs, two cats, some fish, and a hankering for a panda. She'd like it mentioned she's never been in prison but we'll see how that panda thing works out.

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Visit her at her blog http://www.thequillsisters.com
