Master of Seduction

by Kinley MacGregor

  She didn’t.

  Jack’s arms wrapped around her and the two of them tumbled to the ground. As they fell, Jack rolled so that his body absorbed the impact and they came to land a few feet from the cart with Jack on the bottom.

  Lorelei dug her elbows into his chest in an effort to loosen his hold so that she could rise to her feet. He groaned and tightened his arms around her until she could no longer move.

  Lying atop him, she stopped struggling and stared down into those cold gray eyes. She licked her suddenly dry lips, afraid of what he might do to her now that he had her firmly within his grasp.

  To her relief, he released her and stood. Before she could run again, he pulled her up from the ground and locked his hand tightly around her upper arm. “As I said,” he ground out, “I really must insist.”

  When she tried dragging her feet and twisting out of his grip, he growled low in his throat, then picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked.

  “I have no intention of renewing our chase.” He locked his arm around her legs to keep her from kicking him.

  As Lorelei drew back to pummel his back, she caught sight of the dark stain spreading on his shirt. Frowning, she touched it, then drew her hand back to see it covered in red.

  It was blood.

  “If you so much as pat that wound,” Jack warned, “I’ll see your back lashed with a whip.”

  Tempted to disregard his words and pound anyway, she decided the saner course of action would be restraint. This was a man whose very name symbolized murder, mayhem, and cruelty.

  Besides, as large as he was, it would probably only make him angry. And she’d already had a good indication that Black Jack Rhys was a fearsome ogre when angered.

  He carried her up a gangway.

  “Jack!” She heard a man’s excited shout. “Thank God, I was just…” The man’s voice trailed off as Jack stepped aboard the ship.

  “What the devil have you done now?” the man demanded.

  Jack ignored him as he carried her across the deck, past crew members who stared at them in a mixture of curiosity and disbelief, and descended a ladder to the decks below.

  The man followed behind them, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gulping for air.

  Lanterns were placed on the wall every few feet, giving her enough light to finally see the bloodstain seeping across Jack’s shirt. It was an ugly wound and she recalled the sound of a gun firing not long before Jack had tossed her poor escort to the ground and taken his seat.

  The man trailing them was extremely handsome and in his early twenties. With black hair and brown eyes, he stood almost as tall as Jack. She had seen him earlier that night at the tavern talking with another man she had suspected of being a spy by the way he would draw silent at her approach and scan the room nervously while she served them.

  But the man behind her had not been so cautious.

  “Is this the girl from the party last night?” the stranger asked.

  “Aye,” Jack answered. “I told you, pup, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “What is it with you and this woman?” the man asked Black Jack, looking somewhat dumbstruck. “Jack, you can’t go around abducting heiresses. Are you insane?”

  Jack snorted. “So I’ve been told.”

  “Make him let me go,” Lorelei begged the handsome stranger. “Please don’t let him keep me.”

  The man opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

  Lorelei heard footsteps as someone approached from in front of them.

  “Tarik,” Jack said in greeting. “Get the men ready to sail. We leave immediately.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Jack paused and Lorelei tried to see the newcomer, but Jack held her so that all she could see was the shocked look on the dark-haired man’s face. Raising up, she bumped her head against one of the lanterns.

  “Hold still, woman,” Jack snapped. “The last thing you need is a concussion.”

  Lorelei balled up her fists wishing she could strangle the beast.

  “And Tarik,” Jack said, his voice thick with warning. “We were being chased. If they show up on the docks, aim to maim. Do what you have to, but try not to kill anyone.”

  “Captain?” the man asked as if the order confused him.

  “Just do it. Tell the men I’ll have the head of anyone who kills a Brit tonight.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Jack turned her to the wall as the man walked past them.

  “Let me go!” she insisted, knowing it would do no good, but still feeling the need to try.

  The dark-haired man stepped forward and gestured toward her. “You’ve got to let her go, Jack. She’s more trouble than even you want.”

  Jack’s low laugh was his only response.

  Now the man trailing them looked as if he wanted to throttle Jack as much as she did. “Please talk some sense into him,” Lorelei begged, hoping this stranger held some sway over her captor. At least he appeared to be more reasonable than the pirate.

  “Enough of this, Jack. Let her go.”

  Jack ignored him. “Lay on, Macduff; and damned be him that first cries, halt, enough.”

  Shakespeare? she thought with a frown. The king of pirates was quoting Shakespeare?

  “Very amusing, Jack,” the dark-haired man snarled. “Need I remind you, Macbeth lost his head.”

  Jack said nothing more as he opened a door, walked to the center of a large cabin, and finally released her. Immediately, she ran for the door.

  “Stop!” Jack roared in a voice so powerful that her body involuntarily obeyed.

  He crossed the room and stood before her. His eyes devoid of emotion, he stared sharply at her. “I weary of chasing you, my lady. If you so much as take one step from this room, then I shall be forced to kill you for it.”

  She swallowed convulsively as the rumors of his ferocity played through her mind. No one crossed Black Jack Rhys and lived.

  “Better dead than raped,” she said, her voice cracking with nervousness.

  Jack rolled his eyes. He turned to the dark-haired man. “Would you please tell the wench that rape isn’t included on my list of crimes against nations?”

  “Neither was kidnapping until tonight.”

  Jack’s look could have forged steel. “You’re not helping. And I haven’t any more time to deal with either one of you.” Jack directed his gaze back to Lorelei. “You’ll be locked in here until we get safely past the Brits. Try to relax and stay low to the floor.”

  “Low to the floor?” she asked in confusion.

  “Aye, you’re less likely to lose your head should a cannonball come crashing through the wall.”

  “Is that a jest?” she gasped.

  When he didn’t answer, she turned to the dark-haired man. “Is he joking?”

  “Nay.”

  Jack pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Don’t worry,” he said with a taunting smile. “If the ship starts sinking, I promise I’ll come back and unlock the door.”

  Her stomach sank faster than a capsized boat.

  Lorelei was too stunned to move until after the two men had left the room and closed the door behind them.

  Rushing to the door, she rattled the knob as Jack locked it. “Nay!” Lorelei shrieked. “You have to let me go.”

  But it was no use. Jack locked the door and she listened as he and his companion walked away from her room.

  Lorelei closed her eyes in defeat. Her fate was sealed and she was doomed.

  Jack, I know you’ve—”

  “Listen,” Jack said, cutting Morgan off as they headed back topside. “I need you to deliver a message for me to Lieutenant Justin Wallingford.”

  “I don’t care if it’s to…” He watched as the name dawned on Morgan. “Wallingford?”

  Jack nodded. “She’s engaged to Lord Wallingford’s son.”

  The color faded from Morgan’s face. “You can’t be th
inking what you’re thinking.”

  Jack rubbed his aching, wounded shoulder. He needed to get Morgan off his ship and tend his wound. The last thing he wanted was to bleed to death before he had a chance to even his score.

  “Morgan, I don’t have time to write the letter myself. I need you to do it after I’m gone. Tell Wallingford I’ll be waiting for him at Isla de Los Almas Perdidos.”

  “This is suicide, Jack.”

  “No,” he said, narrowing his gaze on the docks. “This is revenge.”

  Morgan glared at him for several seconds before he spoke again. “You know Thadeus wouldn’t approve of this.”

  Jack felt a tick begin in his jaw as he thought about old Thadeus. He’d been a kind, gentle man. A physician by trade and a sailor by choice, Thadeus had befriended Jack after he’d escaped and signed on to sail with Robert Dreck’s pirate crew. When Robert had retired from piracy, the old man had chosen to sail with a merchant ship. A merchant ship that had turned Patriot at the outbreak of this bloody damn war. A ship Wallingford had captured eight months ago.

  He’d been looking for the bastard ever since.

  His eyes hard, he snarled at Morgan. “I’m sure Thadeus didn’t approve of being tied to the main mast of the White Dove while Wallingford set fire to it, either.”

  Jack tried to step past Morgan, but Morgan grabbed his good arm and turned him back to face him. “I know you loved the old man, Jack. But let it go before you get killed.”

  Grimacing, Jack wrenched his arm free. “Let it go? This from a man out to destroy Isaiah Winston? How long have you been after that bastard?”

  “That’s different. He murdered my father.”

  “What the hell do you think Thadeus was to me?” How he hated hearing the pain in his voice. Jack prided himself on the fact that nothing ever touched him. But Thadeus had. In a life filled with pain, Thadeus had been the only salve he’d ever known. The old man’s wisdom and kindness had been the only thing that kept Jack whole and sane.

  There were times he hated the old man for not joining his crew. If he had, he’d be safe now. Instead, Thadeus had joined those damned Patriots and gotten himself taken.

  There had been no survivors. Wallingford had ordered his crew to shoot any man who escaped the flames.

  Morgan and Jack stood there glaring at each other until Morgan finally sighed. “I’m sorry, Jack. I truly am. But this won’t give you peace any more than getting yourself killed will bring Thadeus back.”

  Those words reminded him of the last thing Thadeus had said to him. Just don’t let yourself get killed before you make your peace, boy. Many’s the soul who consigned themselves to hell without the devil having to lift a finger.

  Jack hadn’t consigned himself to hell. The world had done that to him long ago. Now it was time for him to fulfill the doomed prophecy his mother had whispered in his ear since his early childhood.

  “Are you going to write the note, Morgan?”

  Morgan sighed. “I owe you too much to say no.” His eyes turned to stone. “Damn you, Jack. I’ll never forgive you if you end up like Thadeus.”

  Jack wanted something to say to comfort Morgan. But he couldn’t give him any solace. Fate was fickle. They both knew that. One day fate, like everyone else in his life, would betray him.

  It was expected.

  “Go on, Morgan. I’ve got a lot to do.”

  Morgan gave a bitter laugh. “Have him meet you at the Island of the Lost Souls. You’re a sick man, Jack Rhys. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  Jack watched him walk away. Morgan was the only person alive who understood the significance of that island. The only person who knew that part of Jack’s past.

  That part of his future.

  Lorelei leaned over the wooden table in the center of her room with her chin resting on her folded arms. The cabin was larger than she would have thought, with a washstand and basin in one corner and a small bed to her left. Large windows were in front of her that allowed her to see the lighthouse light dappling against the midnight waves as she watched the coast of Charleston grow smaller and smaller.

  It had been almost an hour since Jack had locked her in and left her here to contemplate her future.

  And what a grisly future she imagined it to be.

  She trembled in uncertainty. Poor Justin. He would blame himself for this. He wouldn’t rest until he found her in whatever condition Jack left her in.

  Deep inside, she wished she could blame Justin for this. But she’d been the one who agreed to this horrible night. She was the one who had identified Jack Rhys.

  “You should have listened to Justin!” she hissed to herself. He’d warned her of the danger, but fortified by her own arrogance, she hadn’t listened.

  When was she going to learn to obey her fiancé and her father? How many more fiascos would she have to face before she learned her place?

  The door to her room flew open.

  Lorelei shot to her feet to meet the newcomer.

  Black Jack entered. Though his face still bore a day’s growth of beard, he’d changed clothes and washed himself. Even across the room, she could smell the clean scent of man, soap, and sandalwood.

  His black trousers were snug against his lean muscular hips and thighs, and tucked into a pair of finely polished boots tipped with sliver inlays. The black cotton shirt was full and open at the throat, displaying a good hand’s length of smooth, tanned chest that fair glowed in the low candlelight. He wore his long honey-colored hair pulled back into a queue that contrasted sharply with his dark-colored clothing.

  The look on his face was both stern and sharp, intense and predatorial.

  If not for who and what he was, he would have been an incredibly handsome man.

  “What do you want?” she snapped, putting her chair between them.

  A bitter smile curved his lips. “Still don’t trust me.”

  “Should I?”

  His face turned serious. “No, you shouldn’t.” He moved toward her.

  Instinctively, she backed across the room until the wall stopped her retreat.

  To her surprise, he paused at the table where she’d been sitting and placed a small brass key on the tabletop. When he looked up at her, he pinned her with his cold, serious stare. “This is the only key to this room.”

  Lorelei looked at the key that glinted like gold in the candlelight.

  “You may keep the door locked for the entire trip if you wish.”

  She lifted her gaze from the key to his face. “You’re really not going to rape me?”

  Closing his eyes, Jack clenched his teeth, and bore the look of a man who was struggling for patience and losing the battle quickly. “No, Lorelei. I’m not going to rape you.”

  Could she really believe him?

  He’d said himself he wasn’t trustworthy. “Is this all just some elaborate game? Are you trying to make me trust you so that you can torture me with betrayal?”

  “Been listening to stories about me, have you?”

  “They’re true, aren’t they?”

  He shrugged. “I guess it depends on whom you ask. What I’ve learned over the years is that truth is never so easy. And every person sees a different reality.”

  She thought about him at the party last night. The way he’d easily convinced people he was an aristocrat. He’d been a part of her world then, with the same stoic arrogance he bore here on board the ship where he was the absolute voice of authority. It had taken untold confidence and daring for him to walk into her father’s party uninvited and not be caught. But then, he must have known that he wouldn’t be challenged, had probably gone to numerous such affairs without ever being found out.

  It was her first insight into this man. “You like to play with people’s perceptions, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he moved to stand before her.

  Lorelei glanced to the door, wondering if she could run through it before he caught her. Before she could try, he r
eached out and touched her cheek.

  Though light, his touch and his heated gaze held her prisoner. His fingers were warm against her flesh.

  “Little Lorelei,” he breathed. “Named for a goddess and possessed with the inner strength of a warrior. I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he whispered and in some way, those words soothed her. Against all sanity and reason, she believed him when he spoke.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  His gaze dipped to her lips and when he spoke his voice was warm and welcome. “I want you to know that no one on board my ship will harm you. Most especially not me.”

  She swallowed at his words and at the spell they were weaving around her. What was it about this man that she found herself wanting to trust him? His scent clung to her, as well as the heat from his body. The tenderness of his flesh against her own sparked a flame deep inside that terrified her more than his ruthless reputation.

  He lowered his hand to where he could feel the strong beating of her heart against his fingertips. “There,” he said quietly. “No fear?”

  “A little fear.”

  He laughed at her honesty.

  A knock sounded on the door, intruding on the strange feelings that swept through her at his intimate touch.

  Jack took a step back. “Enter,” he called.

  A tall, distinguished-looking black woman walked in, carrying an armload of clothes. She was dressed in a loosefitting skirt and sleeveless shirt of vibrant gold. Surely no more than a year or two older than Lorelei, she had a beautiful face and her hair had grown out naturally, forming an attractive frame for her medium brown skin.

  “So,” the woman said, her voice thick with a Carribean accent. “This be the poor child ya done gone and stolen from her family. Ya ought to be ashamed of yourself for such, Captain Jack. Ya’ve probably frightened the poor child out of her old age.”

  To her astonishment, Jack looked sheepish.

  “Now ya best be going,” she said to Jack. “Tarik say those British are closing in and he be needing ya topside for the fight.”

  “Fight?” Lorelei asked, her heart hammering once more.