Captain Rose's Redemption (Harlequin Historical)

by Georgie Lee

  From gentleman to rogue

  Who had her former fiancé become?

  Captured by pirates off the Virginia coast, Lady Cassandra Shepherd is shocked to see in the blue eyes of Captain Rose the young man she loved and lost. What has caused him to exchange his honor for a chance at revenge? But he needs her help. Dare Cas believe the captain can reclaim his life as an upstanding gentleman and with it, her hand in marriage?

  “An exciting spy novel with a Gothic twist.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer

  “The Governess Tales series starter is charming.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Cinderella Governess

  “You wish to discuss surrender?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  Captain Rose approached her with long strides, and Cassandra shifted back until she hit the side of one trunk and could go no farther. She braced herself, waiting for him to knock the pistols aside and press his wide body against hers. He didn’t, but clasped his hands behind his back, the stance stretching his shirt tight across his massive chest. If she pulled the trigger, she couldn’t miss him. If she killed him, his crew would set on her and the others like rabid dogs.

  He swept the length of her with an appreciative look.

  “Imagine what a surrender it could be.” His low voice reverberated through her, cutting through the heat of the cabin and adding to it. If he weren’t a rogue, and she a lady in danger of losing more than her valuables, she could well imagine it. To hear such tones in her ear in the dark of night, with jasmine scenting the air, his warm hands on her moist skin. A temptation even the devil could not create stood before her.

  GEORGIE LEE

  Captain Rose’s Redemption

  A lifelong history buff, Georgie Lee hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then, she fulfills her dreams of lords, ladies and a Season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading nonfiction history or watching any film with a costume and an accent. Please visit georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.

  Books by Georgie Lee

  Harlequin Historical

  Engagement of Convenience

  The Courtesan’s Book of Secrets

  The Captain’s Frozen Dream

  Captain Rose’s Redemption

  The Business of Marriage

  A Debt Paid in Marriage

  A Too Convenient Marriage

  The Secret Marriage Pact

  The Governess Tales

  The Cinderella Governess

  Scandal and Disgrace

  Rescued from Ruin

  Miss Marianne’s Disgrace

  Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

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  To the little one who was with me through much of this story.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Beguiled by the Forbidden Knight by Elisabeth Hobbes

  Chapter One

  Off the coast of Virginia—1721

  ‘Open the door or we’ll break it down.’

  Lady Cassandra Shepherd flexed her fingers over the butts of her father’s matched duelling pistols and remained silent. Dread and the humid air of the mid-Atlantic nearly smothered her and made the mother-of-pearl handles stick to her skin.

  ‘What’ll we do, my lady? What’ll they do to us if they get in here?’ asked Jane, the young nurse, her weak whisper nearly lost beneath the pounding boots, screaming and gunfire overwhelming the small cabin from the pirates pouring on to the Winter Gale.

  Cassandra could answer the question, but didn’t. ‘Don’t worry, Jane, all will be well. I promise.’

  Cassandra smiled at Dinah, her two-year-old daughter, who clung to the nurse’s skirts, her eyes wide with concern. Innocence made her braver than Jane, but not immune to the panic of the adults. Dr Abney stood beside Cassandra, clutching his old sea service pistol. All four of them watched the door from behind the trunks where they’d barricaded themselves inside the Captain’s cabin at the outset of the attack.

  No further demands were made. Beyond the door, the air cracked with blunderbuss fire and the continued commands and hollering of the pirates on deck, their voices much closer and more commanding of the crew than before. The pirates on the other side of the door didn’t repeat their demand.

  ‘Perhaps they’ve gone away,’ Jane choked out.

  ‘They won’t be put off so easily.’ Dr Abney exchanged an uneasy look with Cassandra and cocked his pistol. His ball wasn’t for the pirates, but for her. Hers were for Jane and Dinah, to spare them from slavery or a worse fate at the hands of these brigands if Cassandra couldn’t think of a way to save them all. The reality of it almost shattered her nerves and she prayed, if the time came, she’d have the courage to do the unthinkable.

  No, it won’t come to that. She gripped the weapons tight and focused on the door. There was still a chance they might survive, no matter how slim, and she would seize it. She must.

  Everyone jumped when a blow rattled the flimsy door along with the narrow and spindly desk and the low trunk they’d shoved against it. The hit shook the iron hinges loose in the jamb and the wood bowed under the pressure. It was clear the rusted hinges wouldn’t hold against another assault and the desk and trunk would only delay and not stop the intruders.

  A final strike wrenched the hinges free and sent the door crashing down to crush the desk and seesaw across the top of the trunk. Filthy men squinting to see in the dim light stumbled into the cabin, tripping over the broken wood.

  Cassandra raised the pistols, demanding her hands remain steady. She didn’t have enough lead shot to send these dogs to hell, but she wouldn’t give up, not before she tried to save herself and her daughter.

  ‘How dare you enter here,’ she scolded loudly.

  The pirates jerked to a halt and their grimy jaws fell open at the sight of her.

  ‘Pardon us, lady, we weren’t meaning to intrude,’ a slim man with weasel-like eyes over a pointed nose replied, his hands slipping one over the other in their eagerness to be on her. ‘If you’ll be puttin’ down the pistols, we’ll be gettin’ to business.’

  ‘Mr Barlow, ’tis Captain’s orders no woman is to be forced and no passengers molested,’ a man in a red Monmouth cap, his grey hair sticking out from beneath it, warned, more interested in the contents of the damaged desk than Cassandra. He searched through the papers that had been scattered about when the door had broken it, probably searching for any gold or jewellery the Captain kept there.

  ‘I don’t give a fig for Captain’s orders,’ the weasel spat. He turned back to Cassandra and licked his lips. ‘I’ll be tastin’ a little of the finery he keeps for himself.’

  Mr Barlow took a menacing step forward, and Cassandra cocked the pistols. ‘Come closer and you’ll regret it.’

  ‘Don’t go givin’ orders, missy
. There are twelve of us and only two shot.’ His lascivious smile revealed a mouth of yellow and missing teeth.

  A shudder slid down Cassandra’s spine, but she kept her stance strong. ‘Then you’ll be the first to die.’

  The weasel exchanged an uneasy glance with the other men who took a step back, willing to let the weasel take the first ball before they attacked.

  ‘Thar be no need for anyone to die.’ Mr Barlow held out his hands in a forced friendly way, but Cassandra didn’t relax.

  ‘Then fetch your Captain. I’ll discuss the terms of my surrender with him.’

  ‘No need to fetch him. He’s here.’ The deep voice rolled through the room from the doorway, the Virginia accent drawing out the vowels sounding familiar, like a hummed song she couldn’t remember the words to.

  Mr Rush jerked to his feet, still clutching a handful of papers, while the other pirates hustled to shove aside the broken desk and door and make way for their Captain.

  The sheer mass of the man blocked the light from outside when he crossed the threshold, his presence shrinking the already tight quarters. He stood above six feet tall with shoulders like a thick yoke draped in a white shirt open at the neck. Perspiration soaked the linen, making it cling to the dark tan of his chest and each ripple of his taut stomach. Dark breeches tucked into high boots covered the solid muscles of his legs. A Spanish sword swung from a belt at his hip and a leather sash slung across his torso held two pistols fine enough to make Lord Chatham, her great-uncle, jealous. The butts of the pistols clanked together when he jerked to a halt at the sight of her. From behind the thin black half-mask that swept the bridge of his nose, leaving his cheeks and mouth free, his rich blue eyes with a hint of yellow near the irises widened, his shock striking Cassandra harder than the cannonball that had shattered the Winter Gale’s mainmast.

  He didn’t expect to find a lady on board, she thought. And yet there was more to his shock than her sex, station or even her weapons, especially when he glanced to the side, avoiding her eyes the way Giles, her late husband, used to do whenever Cassandra had confronted him about his mistress.

  Something in the slight tilt of the pirate Captain’s head while he studied the rough floorboards shifted an old memory deep inside Cassandra, of Virginia pine trees and warm fields, and sitting on the porch at Belle View reading Greek myths aloud with her former fiancé in the days before he’d gone to sea and then died. Anger rushed in with the memory and, when the Captain met her gaze again, she stepped back, stunned to find the same indignation blazing in his deep blue eyes.

  He’s angry at me for resisting. She ran one finger down the curve of the trigger, afraid her act of defiance might have placed her, Dinah and the others in more peril. She tensed, waiting for him to yell or lunge at her the way Giles had whenever she’d defied him. Instead, the Captain swept into a deep bow, his posture concealing the confusion in his eyes. ‘Captain Rose, at your service, Miss—?’

  Captain Rose straightened, his brow above the mask rising a touch while he waited for her answer. However, his lips moved slightly as if he already knew it and was about to say her name.

  Impossible. He didn’t know who she was and she shouldn’t enlighten him. It risked him taking her hostage, though he’d get nothing for her. Lord and Lady Chatham would probably answer a ransom letter with a request for the rogue to dispatch her. It would spare them and London society further embarrassment. Her solid aim slackened at the memory of their betrayal, but she made her arms rigid again, keeping the pistol fixed on the pirate Captain. She still had the shots and command over however many minutes remained of her life. ‘Lady Cassandra Shepherd.’

  He ground his jaw, and she wondered if it was a pirate’s grudge against the King and nobility that made him tense at the mention of her name instead of smiling with delight at the grand ransom a prisoner of her station might bring. He rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Cassandra, the mythic Greek woman doomed to be ignored by men?’

  ‘Most of whom perished for not heeding her warnings.’

  ‘Are you a goddess, sweet lady?’

  She cocked one pistol hammer. ‘I’m as mortal as you are.’

  ‘And tempted like me by the weaknesses of the flesh.’ He rubbed his square chin with his thumb and forefinger and watched her with an admiration she’d not seen in a man’s gaze for far too long. ‘You wish to discuss surrender?’

  ‘I do.’

  Captain Rose approached her with long strides, and Cassandra shifted back until she hit the side of one trunk and could go no further. She braced herself, waiting for him to knock the pistols aside and press his wide body against hers. He didn’t, but clasped his hands behind his back, the stance stretching his shirt tight across his massive chest. If she pulled the trigger, she couldn’t miss him. If she killed him, his crew would set on her and the others like rabid dogs.

  He swept the length of her with an appreciative look, lingering on the round mounds of her breasts as they rose and fell with each of her anxious breaths. She rolled her shoulders in a feeble attempt to raise the neckline of her floral-print cotton dress.

  ‘Imagine what a surrender it could be.’ His low voice reverberated through her, cutting through the heat of the cabin and adding to it. If he weren’t a rogue and she a lady in danger of losing more than her valuables, she could well imagine it. To hear such tones in her ear in the dark of night, with jasmine scenting the air, his warm hands on her moist skin. A temptation even the devil could not create stood before her. ‘I see you agree.’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Cassandra gripped the pistols tighter, horrified not only by her scandalous thoughts but that he’d seen them in her eyes. Now was no time to lose her head like some ridiculous servant girl wooed by her manor lord. She needed her wits. Whether he was strangely charming or not she had no desire to be ravished by this man. ‘I will kill you first.’

  He tilted closer to her, so she could see the shadow of his beard and the small drop of sweat sliding down his chest in the V of his shirt. ‘And deny yourself the pleasure of my company?’

  Cassandra swallowed hard, horrified and intrigued all at once by this man. ‘It would be no pleasure.’

  ‘It could be.’ Something familiar lingered in the curve of his full lips as they drew to one side in a wry smile, as though she’d seen the expression before in a painting viewed in low light, although she couldn’t recall when or where. It couldn’t have been in London. None of the fops there possessed the sheer presence of this man, nor the grace laced with a lethal edge. ‘Tell me, what brings such a classical lady to these waters?’

  ‘I’m on my way to Virginia and I should very much like to reach it.’

  ‘I’m not a man to stand between a lady and her desires.’ He drew out the word like an invitation, making it sound as wicked as a curse and as tempting as an inheritance.

  ‘You’re a wicked man,’ she spat out, as irritated with herself as she was angry and wary of him.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ His eyes turned from languid to hard and he flexed his fingers over the silver hilt of his sword. Judging by the reverence his crew had paid him at his entrance, Captain Rose wasn’t used to being spoken to like a common seaman and didn’t take lightly to being upbraided in front of his men by a woman.

  The slosh of waves against the hull of the ship and the rough voices of pirates shouting orders on the main deck filled the drawn-out quiet in the cabin while everyone waited for Captain Rose’s response.

  ‘Name your terms and we’ll see if they’re agreeable to us both,’ he said at last.

  The man in the Monmouth cap let out a relieved sigh, but Cassandra, too aware of the danger, could barely exhale. ‘No harm is to come to me, my child or her nurse.’

  Cassandra nodded for Jane to come out from behind her and she did, hugging Dinah close. Dinah watched with wide eyes while Jane trembled so violently she could hardly stand.

/>   Captain Rose ignored the young and comely nursemaid and focused on Dinah. ‘I hope we haven’t frightened you too much.’

  Dinah, more curious than afraid, clutched her doll to her chest and shook her head, making the light curls near her cheeks bounce.

  ‘Good. It was never my intention to scare a child.’ The unexpected remorse in his voice echoed inside Cassandra. It was the same one that coloured her words whenever she spoke of her troubles in England, the ones driving her back to Virginia.

  ‘Dr Abney must be under your protection, too,’ Cassandra added, recapturing the Captain’s attention. The rogue didn’t deserve her sympathy and he should be ashamed of his conduct.

  ‘Granted.’ Captain Rose turned to address his men. ‘No man is to touch the women, the child or the good doctor. Anyone who does will sing falsetto.’

  ‘It ain’t right, you saying what men can and can’t have for a prize when it should be laid out in articles signed by us all.’ Mr Barlow sneered at the Captain. ‘On any other pirate ship, the crew would overthrow you for acting so mighty and thinkin’ yourself above them.’

  ‘You’re not on any other ship but mine.’ Captain Rose brought the back of his hand down hard across Mr Barlow’s cheek, knocking him to the ground and making Cassandra gasp in horror. Captain Rose towered over the weasel who clasped his face and shrank back against the hull, a line of blood dripping from his cracked lip. ‘I’ll brook no mutinous talk from any of my crew. If you don’t like how I run my ship, then you’re free to leave it at the next port, or sooner if I deem it necessary. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Barlow whimpered.

  ‘Good. Then find some work on deck and get out of my sight.’

  Mr Barlow stumbled to his feet and pushed through the men still clogging the cabin door to watch the drama between their Captain and Cassandra, no doubt wondering when she would receive the same treatment for her defiance. Cassandra feared it, too, thinking this man’s patience already at an end, but when he turned back to her he laid one wide hand over his heart, as sincere as a magistrate.