Master of Seduction

by Kinley MacGregor

  He arched a puzzled brow.

  “I was wondering if I might paint you in here.”

  His other brow shot up as he stared at her in astonishment. If she weren’t so embarrassed, his look would have amused her. “Learned to trust me already?” he teased.

  “Hardly. It’s just this room is more fitting for you than my yellow cabin. I just can’t imagine you surrounded by lace and…”

  “Frou-frou?” he supplied.

  “That word will suffice. May I?”

  He gave her a courtly bow. “I am ever your servant, my lady. You may have me any place you choose.”

  There was innuendo in his tone and for once Lorelei decided to ignore it.

  “Would you care for my help moving your supplies into my cabin?” he asked.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  In no time, they had her paints, canvas, and easel set up in his room. Lorelei covered her awkward feeling by carefully laying out her palette and paints while the pirate finished his entry into the ship’s log. She did her best to ignore how handsome he looked leaning over the book while he sat at his desk. If she didn’t know better, he looked like any other businessman carrying out his daily task.

  It was only as she was pinning on her crisp white apron that the irony of his task struck her.

  “Why do you keep a log?” she asked as she finished rolling back the sleeves of her gown. “I wouldn’t think you’d want evidence of what you’ve done to be found. Especially evidence written in your own hand.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never denied who or what I am. If my enemies take me, so be it. I’m a pirate and if death by a hangman be my fate, then I’ll abide by my sentence.”

  There was no fear or cowardice in his stance or face as he spoke. It was as if he were merely commenting on the weather. She’d never before met a man who was so willing to accept the punishment for his crimes.

  “Do you want to die?” she asked.

  “No more so than any other, I suppose. But sooner or later we all meet that end.”

  Suddenly, a loud bell started clamoring. The captain froze an instant before he ran to a chest beside his bed and pulled out a flintlock and sword.

  “A ship’s approaching,” he explained.

  “Justin!” she breathed, thrilled at the thought that he’d found her so quickly.

  The look on the pirate’s face could have chilled the sun. “Stay here.” Then he was out the door.

  Relief washed through Lorelei at the thought she might be headed home. Closing her eyes, she savored the image of Lord Wallingford’s ship and Justin’s face as she stepped on board the crisply polished galleon that would take her back to the safety of home.

  She couldn’t wait.

  Moving to the windows of the cabin, she looked out at the swirling waves. She strained all she could, but there was no sight of a ship, nor any other sign that someone approached, let alone a clue as to who it might be.

  Too excited to care how foolish her actions were, she left Jack’s cabin and went up to the deck to see her fiancé for herself.

  A mad shuffle was taking place on board as cannons were prepared and pirates scurried to take their places.

  “It’s a ship all right, Captain,” the sailor from the crow’s nest called down to Jack. “But it ain’t Winsome Fate. Looks to be a Spanish sloop.”

  Disappointment assailed her. It wasn’t Justin come to save her after all.

  “Is she navy or private?” Jack called up to his man.

  “Too far to tell, Captain.”

  There was an eerie silence before another shout. “New ship to port aft!”

  Two ships?

  Lorelei’s stomach fled south at the news. Dear Lord in heaven above, they were about to be caught in the middle of a serious battle.

  It was then Jack caught sight of her. His eyes narrowed and he strode quickly toward her.

  “This is no time for you to take a walk, Lorelei. Go below before you get seriously hurt.”

  Just then a small head bobbed up over a barrel to Lorelei’s left. The pirate’s curse brought heat to Lorelei’s cheeks.

  “Is there no one on board this ship who will listen to me,” he said in a low tone that barely reached her ears. His face stern, he reached for Kit and pulled the boy by the scruff of the neck to stand before him.

  His grip was so tight on Kit’s shirt that his knuckles blanched, and she could feel his need to throttle his son. Instead of the stern reprimand she expected him to give the boy, the captain said in a calm voice, “Kit, I have a serious mission I need you to complete.”

  Kit’s face wavered between the fear of punishment and hopeful enthusiasm. “Aye, Captain?”

  “It’s the most important one on this ship.”

  Hopeful enthusiasm won out. “Truly?”

  “Truly. I need you to guard our hostage while I deal with these Spanish dogs.”

  Kit’s gaze slid to Lorelei and she could tell guarding her rated right up there with swabbing the decks and cleaning chamber pots. “Guard her how?”

  “I need you to take her to your room and make sure she doesn’t leave it.”

  Kit’s face fell and he pushed his lower lip out in a show of adolescent distemper. “But how can I help you win the fight if—”

  “This is far more important,” the pirate interrupted. “We must make sure no harm befalls her.”

  Kit sighed in resignation. “Very well, Captain. I’ll keep her below.”

  Lorelei didn’t like to be manipulated so, but she knew the pirate was right. The deck was no place for Kit, or for her. And unlike Kit, the last thing she wanted was to see battle firsthand.

  “Come on,” Kit snapped. “We’ll be safest in my room.” He led her in the opposite direction of her own cabin, toward the center of the ship.

  When he finally opened the door to his room, Lorelei paused, staring at the interior.

  From where she stood, it looked like Armageddon had struck and nothing had been left standing. Clothes and wooden pieces of all manner of toys and ship parts were strewn about. It was strange to see the room, for it showed quite vividly Kit’s transition from boy to man. Wooden soldiers and ships were littered alongside a wench and ropes that bore various knots.

  Two large medieval-style pennants hung along one wall with a dragon rampant on one and a gryphon reposed on the other. His unmade bed was designed much like Jack’s and if she didn’t miss her guess, there was a crocheted black sheep tangled in the bed covers.

  “I apologize for the mess,” Kit said as he darted to the bed to toss a shirt over the sheep. “The captain gets on me always for it, but I don’t get many visitors. Just the captain when he eats dinner with me.”

  “He does that a lot?” she asked as she closed the door behind her.

  “Almost always.” Kit took a match from a silver box next to his bed and lit two more lanterns to help her see. “I keep telling him I’m too old for it, but he doesn’t seem to listen.”

  Lorelei smiled at the image of the pirate king coddling his son. “He still sees you as a child?”

  Kit rolled his eyes and blew out the match. “I’m sure I’ll be a grown man one day and still he’ll cut up my meat for me.”

  She smiled at the forlorn note in his voice. “My father treats me the same way.”

  “But you’re a girl,” he said, as if that were an excuse for her father’s overprotectiveness.

  He picked up the armload of clothes from his chair and tossed them to the center of the room so that she could sit.

  Deciding she couldn’t relax in this room while it was in this condition, she set about collecting the wooden toys. “You love your father?” she asked.

  “More than my life,” Kit said with conviction. “He’s the best captain ever to sail.”

  Lorelei placed her gathered toys in a carved wooden chest that was set next to his bed. The chest was a beautiful cedar piece with coiling dragons carved all over it. In the cente
r of the lid, the boy’s name was carefully inscribed into a small cloud, Kristopher Alec Rhys. But what stunned her more was when she looked to the inside of the lid and read the poem that had been carved there:

  There once was a little boy named Kit,

  who was loved much more than a bit.

  With eyes of green and hair of brown,

  he had a smiling face that seldom frowned.

  And though his room was seldom neat,

  perhaps this chest will help achieve that feat.

  She traced the writer’s initials with her fingertip—JR. Jack Rhys? Could the poem really be the work of Jack Rhys?

  She closed the lid.

  “Do you like it?” Kit asked as he started folding some of the clothes.

  “It’s very nice.”

  “The captain made it himself. It was a gift for my fifth birthday.”

  Lorelei moved to stand next to him, where she could help fold his clothes and place them on the bed. She bit her lip in indecision as a thought struck her.

  Would Kit be as closed about his mother as the captain?

  It really wasn’t her place to pry, and yet she wanted desperately to know.

  Deciding this would probably be the only person on the ship who would answer her questions, she took a deep breath and asked, “Kit, tell me about your mother. How long was she married to the captain?”

  He paused while folding a shirt and cocked his head as if trying to remember. “I’m not sure. The captain never said. He just told me that he fell in love with her the first time he saw her. Said she was a beautiful woman with very gentle ways.”

  Her chest tightened at his words.

  She felt as if someone had just struck a blow to her. For some reason she didn’t want to think about, it hurt her that he had loved this other woman, that he had lied to her when she’d asked him about it. “So, he loved her much?”

  “Aye. She loved the two of us with all her heart. He said her last thoughts were of me and that she told him she’d always watch out for me from heaven.”

  She cleared her throat of the sudden knot that choked her. “How old were you when she died?”

  Kit took a stack of folded trousers and dumped them in a small wardrobe by his door. “Three, I think. I don’t remember her at all. I just know what the captain tells me about her.”

  Cannon fire roared and the ship shook. Lorelei gasped at the nightmarish repeat.

  “That’ll be warning shots,” Kit told her.

  “Warning shots?”

  “Aye, we fire them to warn the captains we’re serious about battle.”

  She heard the response as cannons in a distance fired. “Sounds like they’re pretty serious as well.”

  His eyes troubled, Kit nodded. “There’s a lot of people who want to kill the captain.”

  For the first time, Lorelei saw the pirate as something more than a bounty. She saw him through Kit’s eyes. He was the boy’s father. The man Kit treasured as much as she treasured her own father. Not a pirate or a brigand to Kit, Jack Rhys was the one who chased away his dragons and fears.

  Without him, Kit would be orphaned and completely alone.

  The boy chewed his lip and stared at the door as if debating whether or not he should run for the deck.

  Lorelei knew his thoughts. He no doubt wanted the comfort of his father’s presence, wanted to hear his father tell him everything would be all right.

  “Kit,” she said, moving toward him. “Would you hold me? I’m scared and I know that would make me feel a lot better.”

  He ran into her arms and as Lorelei held onto him, she didn’t know which of them was more terrified.

  “We’ll be okay,” he said in a wavering voice. “No one can beat the captain. Really. He’s the best at everything.”

  She smiled at the youthful belief and at Kit’s attempt to reassure her. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  For what seemed like hours on end, the cannons roared and the ship rocked. At times she was certain they’d taken a straight hit, but no water ever seeped into the room and time seemed to pass slower and slower.

  Just when she was certain she could stand no more, a loud thunderous clamor of voices rang out, then the bell sounded.

  Kit raised his head so quickly, he bumped her chin. “We won!” he shouted.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Aye. That’s the victory bell.” He scrambled from her arms and ran out of the room.

  On trembling legs, Lorelei forced herself to follow after Kit.

  When she climbed out to the deck, the pirate men were in high celebration.

  “Lower the red flag,” the captain called to Tarik as he caught Kit up in his arms.

  “We won, we won!” Kit shrieked, hugging his father.

  Jack just smiled. “Of course we did, boy. You didn’t really think I’d let them Spaniards get a hold of us, did you?”

  Kit pulled away from his father and walked around the standing members of the crew to congratulate them.

  Then the captain turned and met her gaze. The smile faded and something hot flickered in his eyes. “I trust you fared better this time?”

  Stepping closer, Lorelei looked out at the Spanish ship which was a few hundred feet to their right. The ship was sinking and the crew was in a mad scramble to launch their lifeboats. “What’s to be their fate?” she asked.

  “Whatever God intends,” he said, then raised his voice to Tarik. “Raise sails and make haste.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Are we running from the other ship?” Kit asked in horror.

  Jack laughed. “Never. ’Tis your uncle Morgan’s ship out there to port aft. We’ll let the Spanish think he scared us off.”

  “Phew,” Kit said, curling his lip. “Why does he get to play hero while they hunt us down?”

  The captain ruffled his hair. “One day you’ll understand. Now off with you. I heard Sarah made your favorite tea biscuits and was looking forward to giving you one.”

  Kit scampered across the deck.

  Taking a step toward the pirate, Lorelei looked up at him. “Why are you allowing Morgan to play the hero?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why?”

  He smirked. “If I didn’t explain myself to my son, why do you think I’d explain myself to you?”

  “Because I’m old enough to understand.”

  “And I’m old enough to know better than to explain myself to anyone.”

  Lorelei clenched her teeth in frustration. He was a strange man, to be sure. He wasn’t just the pirate she’d called him. There was much more to this man than that.

  “I’m surprised you’re not plundering their cargo.”

  He snorted. “’Tis a warship no doubt sent out to hunt me down. It would only be a waste of time to search her. Besides, I have more important matters at hand.”

  “Revenge?”

  He feigned shock. “Hardly. I have an appointment for a portrait with one of the most attractive artists I’ve ever captured.”

  Her mouth opened in disbelief. “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “Only battle. Which, as you can see, is now over. We’re still weeks away from our destination and I intend to enjoy the trip.”

  “I’m glad one of us will.”

  “Ah, Lorelei,” he said, stroking her cheek and raising chills along her arms. “I can guarantee you that you’ll look back quite fondly on this journey in your old age.”

  “I sincerely doubt it.” And even as the words left her lips, there was some small part of her that wondered if he were right. This was probably the last great adventure of her life. Once she married Justin, she would be bound to the hearth tending his parties and children. Planning dinner menus and balls.

  Her life would be…

  Boring, she realized with a start. Her life had always been a bit boring. ’Twas what motivated her to ruffle her father and Justin so much.

  Adventure isn’t worth the price you pay for it, little Lori. T
ake it from someone who knows. Granny-Anne’s words had always been with her.

  Along with the stories of heartache her grandmother had suffered. Heartache that had tainted the joy of her grandmother’s smile and dampened the sparkle of her eyes.

  Long ago, Lorelei had promised her grandmother that she would never seek adventure, and never disobey her father. And though there were times when she stretched that promise to the limits of its elasticity, she had always tried to suppress the same wild spirit and need to exert her will that had led her grandmother to complete ruination.

  Nay, she scolded herself. She didn’t need to exert herself. Her father showed great latitude in accommodating her personality.

  Still, she couldn’t honestly deny the fact that this would more than likely be the only great adventure she would ever encounter in her life, and that made her all too aware of how accurate Jack’s prediction was.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Dupree. I have men who need my help. Why don’t you go back to my cabin and finish mixing your paints.”

  And with those words, she found herself dismissed.

  Miffed, she straightened her spine and headed back to the pirate’s cabin.

  Jack watched as Lorelei left the deck. He hadn’t meant to be so curt with her. He’d lived too many years of his life with people who took advantage any way they could, and he wasn’t about to start opening up now.

  The less people knew about him, the safer he was. In more ways than one.

  Even Morgan, as well meaning as he was, would occasionally bring up a subject that was still too raw for Jack to face. And at those times, he regretted his drunken verbosities, which had given such details of his past to Morgan.

  Lorelei was nothing more than a passing fancy. She would suit him well for the next few weeks, but after that she would return to her world and he…

  Would probably be dead.

  Sighing, he headed for Tarik and vowed to think no more of Lorelei and the strange feelings she evoked inside him.

  8

  For several hours, Lorelei had been sketching Jack’s room in her pad while she waited for the pirate to join her. But after a time, she ran out of objects to draw and grew quickly bored. Without the pirate’s presence, she couldn’t even begin the painting, for she wasn’t sure how she wanted him to pose.