The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance (19 page)

They anchored in a hidden inlet on the southwest side of the island. The sailor in Nicholas was impressed. Emmaline’s faster, smaller sloops maneuvered well in the shallow inlets, and were at once hidden from sight. Looking in from the ocean, no one could tell a fleet of pirate ships resided here.

Crewmen rowed the small tenders to shore. When Nicholas climbed out, unsteady without his land legs, Emmaline was already on the small beach.

The island displayed all its late-spring glory. The trees were green with vegetation. The flowers bloomed in a riot of color that hurt the eyes, but was a balm to the soul after weeks of seeing nothing but the gray sea on all sides. Emmaline bent, scooped up a handful of white sand, and let it sift through her fingers. The breeze caught the granules and whisked them away.

Nicholas paused, caught up in the scene before him. Not of the flowers, though they were a sight to behold, but of the woman. The enigmatic Emmaline Blackwell Sutherland was as beautiful as any of the exotic flowers blooming along the tree line. As beautiful, and as mysterious. And like those flowers with their velvet-soft petals, he wanted to pluck her, to explore her depths, to hold her in his hands and examine her beauty.

She’d surprised him when he first saw her on the ship dressed, not in the breeches and shirt he was accustomed to seeing her in, but in a deep-rose gown in the height of fashion. Her ebony hair, usually pulled into a braid and trailing down her back, was coiled into a tight bun hugging the nape of her neck.

Nicholas’s reaction had been visceral, coming upon him so fast it made him dizzy. Weeks ago he’d been almost embarrassed at the sight of a woman wearing men’s clothing. Now he hated
the gown, preferring her in breeches and a silk shirt.

He longed to pull the pins from her hair, to release her curls to the ocean’s breeze and bury his fingers in the sun-warmed strands, while he plundered her mouth with his tongue. Emmaline Blackwell was wild and untamed like the water they sailed on, not cultivated and demure, trussed up in the bone-crushing corset she now wore.

She was a mystery to him, and it hurt that she didn’t trust him with the secrets he knew she regretted spilling. But in all honesty, he hadn’t given her reason to trust him.

The past two years had been nothing but pain and heartache for him. There’d been times he didn’t know if he was going to survive. There’d been times he didn’t want to survive.

With no career to fall back on, he’d been lost, set adrift in uncharted waters. His family had been kind and supportive, but that only made him feel worse. He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.

How his life had changed. He was a prisoner of Daniel Blackwell’s daughter, but the thought didn’t elicit the strong emotions it had even a day ago. He might be a prisoner now, but he would not always be one.

Emmaline dropped the remaining sand and brushed her hands on her skirts, making him smile. Emmaline may be dressed as a lady, but she was still all pirate.

The breeze played with the loose curls framing her face and danced through her dress, causing it to rustle. The waves rushed up on shore, and he took a hurried step forward, so as not to get wet.

She turned to him, beckoned for him to come near. “It’s a short walk to my home. Follow me.”

Like a bee drawn to those exotic flowers, he followed. After several minutes of walking, she stopped suddenly, and Nicholas almost slammed into her, skidding to a sideways halt to keep from bowling her over.

He followed her gaze up to the massive home that reminded him of the plantation houses he’d once seen in the colonies. Verandas on the upper and lower levels ran around the entire
house, with windows big enough to allow the ocean breeze to blow through. Sitting high up on the hill, all four sides had an ocean view. Again, he was impressed. The house was beautiful, but also functional. No matter where you were inside, you were able to see someone approach.

“This is where you live?”

“You were expecting a shack?”

He pressed his lips together. While he hadn’t expected a shack, he had expected something far less luxurious.

“I promise there are no dungeons beneath.”

He shot her an irritated glance, while secretly relieved he wouldn’t be rusticating in a dank dungeon.

Emmaline started for the house as the massive front door swung open. A gnome of a man stepped out, a bold smile on his weathered face. Emmaline let out an unladylike whoop and threw her arms around the little man. Nicholas noted the peg leg. Good God, was this a resting home for retired pirates?

For a woman rejected by her father, living off the goodwill of her aunt, with no hope for a good match, she’d done remarkably well for herself. Beyond remarkable, in truth.

They stepped inside. Nicholas had been in plenty of stunning homes in his time, but Emmaline’s house staggered him. Each room was beautifully decorated with hardwood floors and Oriental carpets. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceilings, and billowing, sheer curtains caught the cool ocean breeze. It would be rude to step closer and stare, but he was convinced the large painting hanging on the opposite wall was a Chardin.

Ill-gotten booty, most likely.

Emmaline introduced him to Clarence, the butler, an old, crusty sailor who took his job seriously. Nicholas didn’t miss the ferocious look of protection Clarence shot Emmaline when she introduced them. Nor did Nicholas miss that she gave him no title, and gave no indication he was here as her prisoner.

Cook was another fierce protector of his employer. He was an old sailor who had lost a
leg during a battle on the seas, and retired soon after. Apparently this truly was a resting place for retired pirates.

Nicholas stood in the marbled entryway while Emmaline caught up with her staff, although the term staff was used loosely in this case. ’Twas obvious these men adored her. There was no formality among them, as there was with his staff in London. No stiff butler, no obsequious cook. Rather, they were more like friends than employer and retainers. Odd. But then, he shouldn’t be surprised. By now he should expect the unexpected with Emmaline.

Clarence turned his uplifted nose to Nicholas, and Nicholas suppressed a smile. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. Apparently a butler was a butler, regardless of whether he was also a retired pirate.

“And whot am I t’do with ’im,” Clarence said, with a sniff.

Emmaline contemplated Nicholas for a moment, as if she didn’t know what to do with him now that they were here.

“Put him in the blue room.”

Clarence nodded and shuffled off, while Nicholas stared at her. “I’m to stay here?”

“I told you I don’t have a dungeon. Where did you think you would stay?”

Truthfully, he hadn’t thought about it. Well, he had. He’d assumed he would stay somewhere other than her home.

“I can’t stay here.”

Her brows drew together in anger. “Why? Is it not good enough for you, Captain Addison?”

“Of course not. I mean, yes, it’s fine. More than fine. It’s just highly improper for an unattached gentleman to stay with an unattached lady.” He stopped himself from adding
with retired pirates as their chaperones
.

Her anger dissolved into laughter. “And sailing on my ship as my prisoner isn’t improper? Spending the night together, alone, nursing an injured sailor isn’t improper?”

Of course it was, but for some reason, that was different—an entirely separate existence
he could almost mark off as the workings of his imagination, if the memories of the night with Shamus weren’t so clear. And the memory of the kiss he shared with her, ingrained in his mind, that nothing short of death would erase.

“That’s different.” Even he noted how lame the excuse was, yet it
was
different.

She grinned, apparently enjoying his discomfort. He couldn’t stay here. Not in the same house. Not when she slept nearby. On the ship, he’d been her unwilling prisoner, but here things were different. He wasn’t as unwilling now, and he’d tasted her, touched her. The few kisses they shared were but a sample of what he wanted. And what he wanted was more. Ached for it, would bleed for it, if need be.

Emmaline sleeping so close was a disaster in the making.

“Are you positive you don’t have a dungeon?”

The next morning, exhausted from lack of sleep, Emmaline dragged on her breeches and shirt, braided her hair and headed to the secluded beach where the sloops were careened.

Normally, she slept well on her first night back from sailing, but not last night. Not when she lay on her bed with explicit images of Captain Nicholas Addison dancing behind her eyes every time she closed them. Or of his look of horror when he realized he’d be sleeping under her roof.

At first, she was offended he thought so highly of himself, and so little of her, that staying here was abhorrent to him. Until she realized his horror had nothing to do with rank and privilege. His hot, smoldering look stunned her and called to an answering heat inside her.

Fear leapt like a living thing in her chest, making her want to retreat. And, at the same time, making her want to step forward and explore what his eyes were telling her he wanted to do. Men had looked at her with hunger before. They made it known what they wanted to do to her, with crude words and cruder gestures. None of them made her quake in fear like Nicholas did.

This danger was altogether different than any other she’d faced. This was a danger to her heart, and that she had no defense against.

She was angry he brought fear into her home, but she refused to retreat, so she had Clarence show him to his rooms and she left him there, perfectly comfortable with him sleeping under her roof. After all, many other men slept there. Phin, Clarence, Cook, Henry when he wanted to, and now Shamus.

Nicholas was but one of many.

Except, she didn’t obsess about the others sleeping down the hall, as she did about Nicholas. She didn’t wonder what the others wore to bed. She didn’t have to kick off the stifling bed-sheets because her thoughts were so tormented her body temperature actually rose. As she did
with Nicholas.

During the long, torturous night, the cool ocean breeze brushed across her heated skin, causing goose bumps to rise, and a restlessness to settle over her. She’d tossed and turned, remembering their kiss in Shamus’s cabin, and the rough calluses on hands brushing across her cheeks. The soft lips that took what they wanted, leaving no quarter.

Disgusted with her thoughts, she headed for the ships.

She had too much to do, and too little time to do it in, to be thinking about Nicholas Addison’s hands and lips.

Today they would begin the careening—the arduous task of pulling the ships up on blocks and turning them on their sides to be breamed. Clean bottoms meant faster sailing. And for a pirate, faster sailing meant survival. Emmaline took pride in the swiftness of her ships. ’Twas one of the reasons she’d lasted so long in such a dangerous profession.

The cleaning would take at least a week, but that was merely the beginning of what they needed to accomplish. They still had to repair the damage done by the storm. Her hope was that everything would be finished by the time they set sail for the colonies in a few weeks.

After that? Well, her plans abruptly ended there.

She could sail to the colonies, but she didn’t know where Blackwell’s ship would be sailing from.
Curse and damn him
.

Before she set sail, she had to know the details of that shipment of gold. All she needed was a well-placed attack and Daniel Blackwell’s business would crumble. Kenmar sending Nicholas to investigate the attacks indicated investors were becoming nervous. It meant Blackwell’s operation teetered toward ruin more than she’d thought.

However, her ships wouldn’t be ready to sail for weeks, and that meant weeks with Nicholas Addison living in her home. Maybe he had the right idea. Maybe she should have housed him somewhere else, because she was finding it more and more difficult to face him after telling him her story.

She was ashamed of herself for being weak, for trusting the first decent man she’d spent
any significant time with. She’d hoped that if one good thing came of telling him about her past, Addison would see her cause as just, and help, by giving her what she needed.

Instead, he never mentioned their conversation, and she was too embarrassed to bring it up again. She’d told him. She wasn’t able to take the words back. Moving forward was her only alternative.
And how are you going to move forward? Torture him in your nonexistent dungeon?
She laughed out loud at the absurdity, startling a few colorful birds from their comfortable perches in the high branches.

She cleared the tree line, and suddenly her ships were before her, already pulled up onto the beach and on their sides, their exposed underbellies rough with barnacles and filth. Her men were hard at work building the fires they would use to light torches to melt the pitch from the hull.

This was her life. Not the life her mother or Aunt Dorothy envisioned, but
her
life. A life she created for herself, without the help of any man.

She made her way to the beached behemoths, proud of what she’d become. She’d given up what was left of her family, and the possibility of a husband and children, for these ships and these men. She didn’t regret it. She had wealth and a privilege of sorts, but more than that, she had her pride. She was an independent woman who sailed with the wind at her back, the sun on her face and the waves beneath her feet. Who commanded respect and fear.

She was Lady Anne, and she wouldn’t give that up for anything.

Phin broke away from the group of sailors and made his way up the hill toward her. Even though it was early morning, the sun was beating down on them, and Phin had already removed his shirt. His bare chest, roped with muscles, gleamed with sweat, and yet the sight didn’t stir her the way Addison’s bare chest did.

Why was that? Both Phin and Nicholas were good-looking men, albeit in different ways. Phin was a man of the sea, rough around the edges, shrewd, deadly. Addison was elegant, refined, and a man with a good heart. It was Phin who was more like herself. Yet, it was Addison who captured her thoughts and stole her good sense.