by Mia Marlowe
PRAISE FOR MIA MARLOWE’S HOW TO PLEASE A PIRATE
“Loved every minute. The children will make you laugh; Gabe and Jacquelyn’s relationship will make you sizzle, and Jacquelyn’s personal dilemma will make you cry. A Perfect 10!”
~ Romance Reviews Today
“A feel-good, fun historical romance with plenty of sexual sizzle! Looks like another winner!” ~ Romance Reader at Heart
“This great Georgian romance is filled with bawdy humor, mindful of Fielding's classic Tom Jones.” ~ Harriet Klausner
PRAISE FOR MIA MARLOWE’S HOW TO DISTRACT A DUCHESS
"A cast of characters that stays with you long after you close the book. Desire, sex, intrigue and betrayal…this book has it all." ~ NightOwl Romance
“Wickedly witty writing and wonderfully entertaining characters are the key ingredients in (this) sinfully sexy historical romance, which touches shrewdly on many key elements of the Victorian era, from extreme decorum to empire building to passions for the classical past, science (including anatomy), and art.” ~ Booklist
Ms. Marlowe “has penned a great story and historical fans will want to pick this title up. It gives you a little bit of everything from intrigue to murder to love." ~ The Romance Reader Connection
How To Please a Pirate
by Mia Marlowe
Copyright @ 2008, 2012 by Diana Groe
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Dear Reader,
This story was first published in 2008 as Pleasuring the Pirate. It has since been revised and updated and I’m delighted to offer it to you afresh now as a Rock*It Reads e-book.
It’s the story of a prodigal pirate who comes home to Cornwall only to discover that the father with whom he hoped to reconcile has died, along with his older brother. Gabriel Drake suddenly finds himself elevated to lord of the manor with the added complication of being responsible for his five orphaned nieces. I like to think of this story as “Pirates of the Caribbean meets Father Goose!”
He’s also obliged to wed, bed and breed an heir on a well-born lady as soon as possible to secure the barony or it will devolved to the Crown. Since Gabriel’s pardon for piracy is predicated on him not entering the city of London, he can’t pursue a bride in typical marriage mart fashion. And the fact that he only wants Jacquelyn Wren, the bastard daughter of a courtesan who couldn’t possibly satisfy the King’s requirements to become his baroness, only complicates matters. Toss in the search for a dragon’s hoard of gold hidden somewhere in his castle and his 5 mischievous nieces and Gabriel’s hands are full.
I hope you enjoy my pirate hero. As always, I’d love to hear from YOU! Please feel free to contact me through my website, or catch me on Facebook or Twitter!
Happy Reading,
Mia
http://www.miamarlowe.com
http://facebook.com/MiaMarloweFanPage
http://twitter.com/mia_marlowe
How To Please a Pirate
At His Majesty’s good pleasure, this Letter of Marque is presented to one Captain Gabriel Drake. Be it known to all that the crimes of the aforementioned mariner are herewith pardoned. However, should the bearer of this Letter of Marque be hereafter found within the precincts of London, said pardon shall be void and the standing sentence to which Gabriel Drake is condemned shall be administered forthwith without trial and without further clemency on the part of His Royal Majesty.
Duly signed and witnessed
this 12th day of June in the
Year of Our Lord 1720.
Sir Cecil Oddbody
Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal
Chapter 1
‘The next time I decide to kill a man, I really need to find better help.’
Jacquelyn Wren struggled toward consciousness, but pain blocked her way. She sank back into oblivion with dreamlike slowness, as though it wasn’t her body lying beside the dusty Cornish road. She lightly skimmed the surface of blackness, ready to plunge downward again, when the voices above her began to make sense.
“No more than a whelp,” a deep baritone said with disgust.
“Dead?” another voice asked, the tone reedy and unabashedly cheerful.
Work-roughened fingers searched for the pulse point below her jaw line. “Not yet.”
Jacquelyn hardly dared breathe.
“No blood so far as I can tell, but he took a wallop. Look at that goose egg. Still, we may get some answers from him.” A booted foot nudged her hip. “Wake up, lad.”
Lad. At least her disguise still held. Her eyes rolled in their sockets before she forced her lids open. A stab of sunlight made her squeeze them closed again. Her head pounded in tandem with her heart.
“Rum, Meri.” A snap of his fingers punctuated the command.
“There’s no call to waste good rum on—”
“Whose rum is it, Mr. Meriwether?”
Jacquelyn peered from beneath her brown lashes. Grumbling under his breath, the one called Meri fished a silver flask from the gelding’s saddlebag and handed it over. The other one, the one whose strong arms forced her to sit up, the one she loathed with every fiber of her being, held the drink to her lips.
“Steady now. Not too fast,” he urged. “This rum’s raw enough to put hair on your chest.”
The spirits burned down her gullet. When she choked and sputtered, he pulled the flask away. She didn’t dare look up at him.
He was coming to destroy her life and the lives of all she held dear. She didn’t want to see his face up so close.
Not until she had a sword in her hand.
“Well, lookee there, Cap’n. He’s still in the land of the living, after all. Must have just had the breath knocked from him, I warrant. Good. I like me boy’s livers fresh.” Meriwether flashed a wolfish grin. “Pity we’ve no onions to fry up with it.”
She’d been warned the new lord and his minions were heartless and utterly without conscience. She felt blood draining from her face. She was probably blanching white as a fish belly.
Damn her weakness! Why hadn’t she been born a man?
“You aren’t really going to eat my liver.” She tried to sound sure about it, but her voice broke with a squeak.
“I won’t,” he promised. “But Mr. Meriwether spent longer in the Caribbee than I. He has peculiar tastes. But if you tell me what I want to know, I’ll make certain your liver stays where it is. Now what’s your name?”
She needed time to gather her wits. Keeping her eyes downcast, she wobbled to her feet. A sword lay a bare five feet away, the hilt faced toward her.
“J-Jack,” she stammered as she edged toward the weapon. “I’m called Jack.”
“Very well, Jack,” he said. “You were with that lot that tried to waylay us, and that makes me indisposed to mercy, but this is your opportunity to can make amends.”
With them? She’d tried to lead them, but her last fuzzy memory was one of the oafs clobbering her senseless with his sharp elbow as he drew his sword. The wretches professed to be experienced assassins and the royal seal on the papers they flashed about gave their claims the ring of truth. The ruffians must have grown wings since their initial assault failed. There was no sign of them now.
“I’m willing to believe you fell in with bad company sort of accidental like,” the captain went on.
“Aye, ‘tis easy enough to fall in with villains, bad company being so much more pleasurable than good company as a general rule,” Meriwether chimed in. “And who should know
better’n you, Cap’n?”
“In any case, I’m willing to do you a good turn for an evil one,” he said. “Will you help me then, Jack?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, pulling the ill-fitting smock-shirt tight around her form, trying to seem as if she were weighing her options. She glanced at Meri, who was now picking rocks from his horse’s hooves, totally disinterested in her since it appeared his captain wasn’t going to let him cook her liver.
This might be her only chance.
“Aye, I’ll help you.” She dove for the sword and by some miracle came up with the hilt in her hand. “I’ll help you on your way to Hell.” Remembering her training with Dragon Caern’s master-at-arms, she brought the blade up in a glittering arc, trusting to surprise for success.
She only managed to catch a corner of his hat and knock it off his head.
Quick as an adder, his sword was out and facing her down. He was much bigger than she expected. He stood a hand’s width more than six feet and carried fifteen stone in weight. Most of it looked to be in work-hardened muscle.
Jacquelyn swallowed hard. The folk of Dragon Caern depended on her to make good decisions. Clearly, this was not one of her finest.
She’d imagined the new lord would be whey-faced, powdered and perfumed, slightly effeminate in the manner of most courtly folk. But this man’s face was bronzed the color of oiled cedar and there was nothing the least soft about him. Something inside her rebelled at the injustice. He had no right to such a strong-boned handsome face. Not with as black a heart as he was rumored to possess. She felt a surge of triumph when a trio of red beads appeared on his smooth-shaven chin. He wiped them off and gave her a mocking bow.
“First blood to you then, Jack.”
Meri chuckled. “And I was a-feared life as a landsman would be dull.”
Circling, the captain retrieved his fallen hat. The tip of his sword never dipped as he slapped the tricorn against his thigh, sending small clouds of dust puffing. The cockade and plume were decidedly worse for the wear but he cocked the hat on his head at a rakish angle.
“I don’t think you want to do this, boy,” he warned.
The fine brocade frock coat and velvet breeches bespoke him a gentleman, but his dark eyes glinted beneath his darker brows, feral and cold as a dragon.
The dragon that would devour her world, the note with the royal seal had promised. She clenched her teeth and gripped the hilt of her sword all the tighter. “Oh, yes, I do.”
“Me thanks to ye, Jackie-boy. Cap’n Gabriel wagered that anyone who wished him bodily harm was still sailing the Spanish Main.” Meri settled on a rock to watch the combatants in comfort. “I recollect he hazarded fifty sovereigns on the matter.”
A wry grin lifted one corner of Gabriel’s mouth.
“Apparently, I lose.” The smile faded. “But I must warn you, Jack. I don’t make a habit of it.”
“Don’t worry,” Jacquelyn said with more bravado than she felt. “I don’t intend for you to live long enough to get used to losing.”
She lunged at him, swinging her blade with all the spite she possessed.
* * *
Gabriel parried the stroke with economy of movement. “Bad form. Is it a lesson you’re wanting then?”
“No, ‘tis your head I’m after.”
“Don’t think I can accommodate you. I’m rather attached to my head.” Despite the dirty face, there was no disguising the delicacy of Jack’s features. Gabriel narrowed his eyes in speculation. Jack was definitely female.
A wickedly angry female.
She recovered from her initial blunder and launched a fresh assault that showed some skill with a blade.
“Better,” he said as they danced with steel. He followed the praise with a rumbling chuckle. “Keep your knees bent.”
“Keep your teeth together,” Jack said hotly, cheeks flaming.
The livid blush made her pink mouth seem all the more ripe for the taking. Even with her spitfire temper, he wanted a taste of her.
A unique combination of strokes forced Gabriel to jerk his attention back to her blade. Her lips might look sweet as honey, but her sword arm carried a sting. Did she think hiding her sex under boy’s rags would make it easier for her to attack him? Gabe would play along for the time being. Uncovering the truth of the matter might prove amusing.
“You take too many chances, Jack.” He side-stepped her rushing blow and whacked her on the backside with the flat of his blade. Not hard enough to truly hurt her, but he knew a rap like that smarted like the dickens.
She yelped and rubbed her bum with her free hand.
“I warned you. You invited that with your carelessness.” One corner of his mouth jinked up. “Perhaps when we’re done here, I’ll take you over my knee and warm your arse properly.”
After all, she was attempting to kill him. The least she might expect was a paddling. He’d even try not to enjoy it too much.
“You truly are evil,” she spat the words at him.
“Did you hear that, Meri? Evil, Jack calls me.”
“Only evil, is it?” Meriwether’s scrub-brush eyebrows rose. “Aye, well, he don’t know ye like I do, else he’d not be so charitable.”
Gabriel turned back to parry Jack’s latest thrust. “I don’t like being called evil when I’ve done nothing to warrant it. Not lately, at any rate.”
“I’ve no care for your likes or dislikes.” Her chin jutted upward in defiance as she raised her sword again. “All I wish is for you to die.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t quake in my boots.” Gabriel cocked his head at her and gave her a grudging nod. Perhaps he needed to change tactics if he hoped to expose her true colors.
“You know, Jack, you took a nasty blow. Might have cracked a rib or two in your fall.” He bared his teeth in a wicked smile. “Best shuck out of your shirt so we can have a look-see.”
Her eyes flared and she backed a step or two. “My ribs are fine.”
“Don’t be so sure. You were knocked senseless. A cracked rib might puncture one of your lights. Nasty thing that. Have you bubbling blood in no time. Now, I ask you, would an evil man be so concerned for the well-being of one who tried to waylay him? Let me help you there.”
Gabriel flashed his blade and, quick as thought, flicked the top button from Jack’s shirt.
She squealed and clutched the shirt closed, but not before Gabriel was rewarded with a glimpse of the sweet meeting place between two tightly bound breasts.
There be a hidden treasure well worth the finding. He smiled at having correctly divined one of Jack’s secrets. Two actually, he thought as his smile deepened.
“Aw, Cap’n. Ye shouldn’t frighten the lad so,” Meri chided as he inspected the gelding’s tack and cinched the girth tighter. “Sours the liver, it does. Makes ‘em hardly worth frying.”
“Steady on, Meriwether.” Gabriel circled the girl slowly. She turned with him, her eyes spitting cold venom. “I think I’ve discovered a better way to loosen Jack’s tongue than your threat to fry his liver for breakfast. Come now. Off with the shirt.”
She shook her head with vehemence. “You’re not just evil. You’re a beast!”
“Freely admitted with pride.” He lifted his tricorn and made a courtly leg to her. “You may dress him in lace and gold trim if you like, but dandy or not, there’s a beast in every man.”
“Don’t tar others with your sins.”
“No need, since I’m sure they have plenty of their own.” With a deft movement, he caught her blade with his and whipped it out of her grasp. The sword turned end over end, but he caught the hilt cleanly. “But all men are part beast, the part that craves what it does not have and stops at nothing to possess. Now, Jack, if you value your skin, you’ll stand still.”
Gabriel stepped behind her and slashed the back of her long shirt in a deep upside-down vee, exposing the backside of her skin-hugging leggings and the muslin winding cloth she’d used to bind her breasts. She gasp
ed but couldn’t stop him from looking his fill.
“Seems Jack’s already bound his ribs, Meri.”
Gabriel’s gaze traveled lower.
No boy ever had such a bottom, the round mounds shaped like an inverted heart. It was as snug a cove as a man could hope for.
The beast in Gabriel roared for a moment, tempting him with a vision of Jack bent over the nearest boulder, leggings twisted at her ankles. His mouth went dry and his breeches were suddenly uncomfortably tight. He’d been without a woman far too long, but he bridled himself.
Once, in another life it sometimes seemed, he’d been the son of a gentleman.
Perhaps he might be again.
“At least, an honest man will own up to his beast,” he said between clenched teeth, as he tamped down the desire she stirred.
“An honest beast,” she all but snarled at him over her shoulder. “So you make a virtue of admitting your faults.”
“A man like me must take virtue where he may.” He came full circle and deliberately strafed her form with a hot, knowing look.
Gabriel had never taken a woman by force in his life and wasn’t about to start now, but Jack didn’t know that. Let her think what she might. He needed answers.
“You’ll pardon me for saying so, but you’re not much of a fighting man, Jack. Why did the men who attacked me need you?”
Her lips clamped together.
He raised his blade. “You have more buttons.”
“We were warned that the new baron was coming to take possession of Dragon Caern. We were told you plan to turn out all the souls who shelter there now. I was to lead a party of fighting men to a likely spot to catch you before you reached the castle,” she admitted.
