Thistle and Roses Collection: A Bundle of Scottish, Irish and English Historical Romance

by Eliza Knight

  His mouth pressed to hers once more, tongue dancing inside her mouth while his fingers trailed a path over her thighs to brush against her curls. She jolted in his arms.

  “Trust me, love,” he said. “I’m going to touch you and then I want you to touch me.”

  Max nodded, letting her thighs fall open. Her husband fluttered his fingers through her curls, over her folds, causing frissons of heated pleasure to roll over her. Then he touched a place that sparked, and she gasped, moaned, bucked her hips.

  “That’s it, love,” he whispered against her ear. “That feels good, does it not?”

  “Yes,” she managed to say through a moan as he continued to caress her. When he dipped a finger inside her, she emitted a cry.

  His mouth crashed over hers, tongue mimicking what his fingers did to her nether parts, and then something happened. The pressure inside her core built to a point where she could no longer breathe, no longer think, only feel, and then she was breaking. Shattering into pieces as intense pleasure took hold, tossing her into the windstorm.

  “Oh!” she cried out. “Sebastien…”

  His forehead fell to hers and his breathing was just as erratic. “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I want to watch you climax again.”

  “It was wonderful,” she said, her thighs still shaking.

  Sebastien kissed his way down her body, nipping gently at her hipbone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when his mouth hovered over her mound.

  “Trust me, love. I’m going to kiss you until you cry out once more.”

  She watched as his tongue darted out to flick against her folds, but then she fell back at the pleasure it brought. Tucking her knees up, she gripped on to the sheets as his tongue taught her a new lesson in what a man could do to a woman.

  Max moaned in pleasure with each stroke, until she did, in fact, cry out, this time the climax even more intense than it had been before. Sebastien crawled up her body, his thick length pressing hotly to where he’d just kissed.

  “Touch me.” He gripped her hand, pulling it between their two bodies until her fingers brushed his thick, hard arousal. It was silkier than she’d expected. She wrapped her fingers around him, watching his eyes fall closed. A groan of pleasure tumbled from his lips.

  “You’re so… hard,” she said. How did skin get that hard?

  “Yes,” he said. “You do this to me.”

  “It’s not always this way?”

  “Nay, love. Only when I want to make love.”

  “Oh,” she said in awe, stroking up and down his shaft and tracing the ridges at the top.

  Sebastien leaned over her, his tongue teasing her lower lip until she opened her mouth to kiss him. He gently covered her hand with his and slid the tip of his erection against her opening.

  “We’ll do this together,” he said.

  “Together?”

  “Yes. I’ll hold you holding me and we’ll guide me inside you together.”

  A fresh wave of sensation made her insides pulse. Max nodded, lifting up to kiss him again. Together, they guided his erection to her body, but when a slight pinch caused her to flinch, she paused.

  “It will hurt a little at first,” he said, his voice sounding strained, “but it will be over quickly, and then pleasure will begin anew.”

  “I trust you,” she said again. Lord, how she did.

  Slowly, he pushed, and she squeezed his shaft with her hand as the pain increased, but then he stilled.

  “You’re not in all the way,” she said.

  “I know. I…” He lifted his head and looked at the headboard, the muscle in his jaw clenching, worrying her. “It feels so good.” Then he was looking down at her. “You feel so good.”

  Relief flooded her, and she widened her legs, relaxing against the painful pinch. She gripped his arousal tightly and tugged, forcing him to drive deeper inside her, then she removed her hand and tilted her hips. A slight aching discomfort filled her as he sank in the rest of the way, but she closed her eyes to it, believing the pleasure would begin anew, as he’d said.

  Sebastien stayed still inside her, kissing her neck, her breasts. He drew her nipple into his mouth and gently sucked until she squirmed beneath him, the pain gone and that hunger sparking where their bodies had joined.

  “Are you all right?” Sebastien gazed down at her, love and concern in his eyes.

  “Never better.” Max smiled up at him and shifted her hips.

  Eyes on hers, he slowly withdrew and then slid back inside her. She dug her nails into his shoulders, crying out at the pleasure. It was powerful. Shocking. The pleasure of his fingers and mouth had been exquisite, but this… She couldn’t describe it. Only that it was infinitely better.

  Sebastien quickened his pace, his lips crashing onto hers. She tugged her legs up at his urging and he slid deeper inside her. His pace quickened until they were both swept up in pleasure. And then once more, she was trembling and gasping at the burst of decadent sensation taking hold of her.

  “Oh, Max,” her husband growled. “Your body…” And then he was shouting out as he shuddered.

  They lay still for several moments, wrapped up in each other’s arms, and then the sound of their soft breathing lulled them both into a satisfied slumber.

  A week later…

  “What about right here?” Max offered, pointing to a spot in the center of the garden where a yew grew. “Beneath the tree?”

  Sebastien held up his torch in the darkness. “Perfect.”

  “The tree’s roots will safeguard the Gladius for a thousand years or more.”

  “Indeed, love. With the sword hidden from the world, our descendants need not worry about the curse anymore.”

  Max nodded. If there was indeed a curse—which it seemed likely there was. Sebastien had confessed of his mother’s madness, though it had all but disappeared since they’d arrived at Rayne Hall. They seemed to be lucky enough to have escaped the madness themselves. Perhaps a clue that the relics were not as powerful as legend would have them believe.

  “No one will find it here.”

  They’d waited until the servants were abed and then snuck out into the gardens to bury the Gladius. Wrapped in a thick, wool blanket and tucked inside the three-foot-long wooden box with iron hinges his father had kept the sword in, they hoped the relic would be well protected.

  “I’ll hold the torch, unless you want to see my skill at digging,” Max said.

  “You have a digging skill?” he asked.

  “Indeed. At our house in the north I used to help in the gardens often. But I confess ’twas not of my choosing, but rather punishment whenever it suited my father.”

  They’d spent the last week in bed. Between making love and eating, they’d shared their deepest secrets with one another—including how her father had blamed her most of her life for the loss of his wife, and for him, that his mother had tried to take her own life.

  “I’ll not ever punish you, Max,” Sebastien said, cupping the side of her cheek and kissing her. When he pulled back, he winked, his smile teasing. “You’ll never have to dig a hole again.”

  Max laughed. “Now I know you truly love me.”

  Breath from the Sea

  by

  Eliza Knight

  Dear Reader

  Dear Reader,

  I’ve always been fascinated by female pirates, and being of Irish heritage, I was so thrilled to finally bring one to life! In Breath from the Sea, my heroine, Antónia, is the granddaughter of Grace O’Malley (Granuaille), one of the most infamous female pirates in history. She was Irish, and did in fact meet with Queen Elizabeth I, gaining a pardon for her son, Viscount Mayo, along with a stipend! She played both sides of the coin in the Irish rebellion. Her daughter did marry the Demon of Corraun, who is my heroine’s father (though there is no record of his children, convenient for me!).

  Before you begin the prologue to my story, please read The Lore of the Lucius Ring! It is the
legend behind the infamous ring in my story.

  I do hope you enjoy this story, and how a bit of history has been weaved in with our legend of Theodosia and Lucius!

  Best wishes,

  Eliza

  Prologue

  Execution Dock, London

  July 4, 1600

  Dressed as a common Londoner, as were two from her crew, Lady Antónia Burke, Captain of the pirate ship, Lady Hook, stood amongst the other revelers at Execution Dock. The infamous spot where pirates were hung was situated on the Thames River, which stunk of rot and garbage in the summer sun.

  Shouting obscenities from the back of a barred wagon were the members of her crew who’d been arrested by the bloody English captain in her Majesty’s devil-trained Navy. All six of them. They shook their fists, faces swollen, bruised from where the guards had hit them, heads shaved, and torn clothes dirt-smudged.

  Onlookers raged at the barred brigands, tossing rotten vegetables and muck. Shouting their own lines of obscenities. Men and women of all ages, even children. An execution was a sideshow, perhaps the most exciting thing to happen in their mundane, bedraggled lives.

  Antónia wanted to grab every one of them by their ears like her grandmother used to do to her and drag them back to their hovels, locking them in the dark until their thirst for blood waned.

  Her men had been brought to the dock at low tide, for their execution, where their hung bodies would dangle for the remainder of the day. Not bloody going to happen. Antónia glowered at the nooses already knotted and waiting. Her men would not dangle today. She was going to help them escape and she’d like to take a few lives of the bastard yeoman standing guard. However, that would interfere with her plans and, so, she’d have to save her revenge for another time.

  Though if she was being fair, she’d pardon the English captain and his disciples, for they were only following orders and laws they thought reasonable. Alas, Antónia wasn’t going to be fair. Not today, or tomorrow. She was a pirate by blood and she did not make exceptions for fools.

  In fact, if she ever came across the bloody captain again, she’d be hard pressed not to pull out her blunderbuss and put a bullet between his eyes.

  Antónia tucked her hat lower, shielding her eyes. She’d ashed her hair that morning to hide the red luster of its color and tucked it into a nondescript lace bonnet with a gray feather. Damn her Irish roots for giving her away when she wanted to be discreet. Her two men, who stood behind her, stooped to hide their Viking-Scots height—they, too, were cursed with an appearance that was hard to miss.

  She glanced back at them, giving a slight nod. All their plans would soon be underway and this day would either end in death or victory.

  Just before dawn, she’d approached the dock, examining the scaffold and happened to come across a man who had death in his eyes. An executioner, though he’d not admit it without his cap on to hide his face. One wayward soul could always tell another. She’d asked the man if he was the sort to end a life, could he be bribed with Spanish coin to look the other way.

  He’d told her, politely of course, to bugger off, though his eyes had said something different, and an imperceptible nod had been all the permission she’d needed to accidently drop a leather pouch full of Spanish gold doubloons near the foot of the scaffold. Inside the pouch, she’d tucked a strip of parchment that read simply: Look the other way when we release the Irish. – Her Grace, the Queen of Pirates.

  Of course, she’d used her grandmother’s name, but all the same, one did such things when needing to save their crew from certain death.

  Now, Antónia saw that man, standing there, his eyes as stormy gray as they’d been that morning, met hers, and again that imperceptible nod. She returned the gesture. Thank the sea gods for Spanish gold.

  A man approaching the scaffold caught her attention and she bit down hard on her lip to keep from shouting her anger at the man who’d brought them into this mess. The English captain.

  He was more handsome than she remembered in his crisp and starched white linen shirt, blue doublet with gold buttons, white breeches, and shiny black boots. His sword gleamed at his hip, and beneath his captain’s cap, his hair was dark as night—not powdered or wigged like most men of his ilk.

  A silent rebellion? If she didn’t despise him, she might have respected that. But she did despise him, so he could take his lustrous hair and shove it up his arse.

  Antónia quickly ducked her face toward the ground; her hat shielded her gaze. When he glanced in her general direction, he’d not see her seething, nor did she risk the chance of him recognizing her despite the soot she’d smeared on her face and in her hair to appear inconspicuous.

  The captain had no idea what was coming for him.

  Waiting at a dock a half-mile north of this spot, was more of her crew, manning a barge large enough to fit them all but not large enough to draw attention.

  One of the prison guards had been replaced by a man in her crew. He would be the one to cut the ropes at the right time. Three men near the wagon would overtake the driver and her crew, if they were smart, would hop back behind the barred cart and hold on for dear life as they rode off.

  They would meet at the barge, hide them beneath blankets and row quietly from the Thames out to the Channel where her merchant ship awaited them at a small port in All-Hallows, a small village just at the mouth of the Thames that would take them out to sea.

  If it all worked…

  Which, it must!

  For, if it did not, she would haunt the dreaded captain for the rest of his miserable days.

  The captain climbed the scaffold, his height at least a head above the executioner, the muscle in his square jaw ticking. She did not remember him being so tall. So broad. Why did he have to be so fine-looking? The feminine side of her, despite her irritation at his gall to arrest her men—even if she and her crew had been in mid-plunder—enjoyed the sight of his fine physique, his ruggedly handsome face.

  “The accused stand before you all, charged with piracy and assault on the queen’s property. They are sentenced to be hung until dead.” The captain stood tall as he spoke, listing the names of the men within the covered wagon. Then he signaled to the guard standing by the cart and that was Antónia’s cue.

  She flicked the feather in her bonnet and the poor wench she’d paid to scream did so at blood-curdling levels. All in the crowd turned to look and that was when Antónia’s crew knocked the guards senseless and took hold of the horse drawn cart.

  The queen’s men shouted. The captain bellowed.

  Antónia smiled.

  “Come, Sweeney, Tavish,” she said to the two guards behind her. “We must be away now.”

  Slowly they turned and headed toward the quay, walking quickly, but not enough to draw attention, a half-mile down river to their newly acquired barge.

  They reached the craft just as the cart did. Sweeney hacked at the lock with his axe and her men spilled out, along with two strangers who immediately swore an oath to her. Into the barge they went, climbing beneath benches, blankets and a few into pine crates.

  Tavish smacked the horses’ rumps and they took off back toward the city, hopefully leading the guards in a different direction.

  Antónia and her men leapt over the rails. “Go, now! Row for your lives,” she hissed.

  They pushed off the quay, eight of her crew rowed with all swift speed, knowing that if they were caught it was death for the lot of them.

  Oh, but sweet satisfaction would be hers.

  A lone rider, suited in white breeches and a blue doublet rode along the quay. Antónia doffed her cap and tossed it into the Thames.

  “Until we meet again, dear Captain,” she whispered.

  Chapter One

  September 7, 1601

  Greenwich Palace

  Court of Queen Elizabeth

  Lady Antónia was dressed in a most proper gown of emerald green, creamy lace at her cuffs and starched at her neck. Whalebone stays pinched her ribs. S
he’d not eaten since that morning and here it was now high noon. ’Twas hard to breathe and even harder to stand tall. She wasn’t used to wearing such formal clothing. Nay, indeed. She much preferred the loose pantaloons and doublet she wore aboard her ship. The ribbons and cap that kept her hair from her face instead of the tight knot and pins that held her fiery locks now.

  If anyone had asked her the previous year when she’d be back in England, she’d not have guessed it would be this soon. Over a year had passed since she’d freed her men from certain death.

  Greenwich Palace was unequivocally the most beautiful and ostentatious place she’d ever been. Her family’s castles in Ireland, where she sometimes graced them with her presence, were nothing compared to this. Terrifying towers truly. They were keeps, strongholds, meant for battle and to keep enemies from within. Greenwich looked as though it had been made for a sovereign’s comfort, for parties and plays.

  Velvet draped every piece of furniture and even the walls. Gold rimmed every painting, mirror and candlestick. Where there was no gold, there was silver. As if the monarchs wished to impart a message to every bejeweled or bedraggled person to grace the halls that their wealth far outweighed any other. Richer than gods. No one in the place seemed concerned with anything other than pleasure.

  Antónia scowled. ’Twas no wonder the English had not yet been able to beat back the Irish, her people. When they weren’t attempting to take over every corner of Christendom, they were dancing and playing boules in the courtyard, stroking their gold and silver.

  As much as their opulence and frivolity disgusted her, Antónia had to maintain a pretense while here. Granuaille, her grandmother, had made it very clear what her purpose was in coming—to give the queen a birthday gift therefore ensuring that the English Queen believed their ties of friendship were still strong. Some years before, Granuaille had sought out Queen Elizabeth, and though their two countries were at war, they’d formed an alliance with each other. Elizabeth had even freed and pardoned Granuaille’s son, Antónia’s uncle, Tibbot, if Granuaille agreed to continue pirating the Spanish and not the English.