“Ah, but alas,” she confessed, “I don’t know how to swim.”
“Well then, may I suggest you stay on board with me and enjoy a lovely dinner,” he paused for a beat and then added, “and maybe more.”
She flashed him a look. There would not be more, but she was tired of fighting off his advances, even though she had a suspicion he wasn’t even really trying. Not yet anyway. She would have to stay on guard. Now, if she could ignore how devastatingly handsome he was.
“Do all pirates eat this well?” She helped herself to some from each platter.
“I find that a well fed crew is a crew less likely to mutiny.” He popped a grape in his mouth. “But we were lucky enough to capture a Spanish ship just last week. There was some minor royalty and other wealthy gentlemen on board. Apparently they liked to travel in style. Now, my sweet, you shall enjoy their finer things.”
The pirate reached over the table and filled her crystal glass with red wine. “I would also like to add, as I don’t keep concubines, that the dress you are wearing came from the same ship. There are trunks and trunks of them in the hold.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She really did feel bad and tried to sound as contrite as she felt, but it was hard with a mouthfull of pheasant. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Of course you did. It’s a good thing you are so very lovely that I will be forced to forgive you.” He graced her with an absolutely devastating smile.
“I was truly apologizing. You don’t need to be mean.”
He stared at her for a moment, as if he contemplated her sincerity. “I was not jesting, nor was I being mean. You are a beautiful woman.”
She waved him away with an imperious flick of her hand and they ate for a moment in silence.
“That explains the availability of the food. Who is the chef?” Roselyn didn’t realize she was so hungry until the food’s aroma hit her. After that first bite, she realized she was ravenous. She’d already eaten one whole plate and was eyeing the bird with seconds in mind.
“I have a cook with talent. Like I said, a well fed crew rarely mutinies.” He offered her the platter of poultry and refilled her wine glass. “Shall we play our game?” He raised his glass in invitation.
Roselyn was feeling much more relaxed and genial after a filling meal and good wine. “I must warn you that I am very good at parlor games.”
“Are you?” The flirting pirate was back. “It has been quite a while since I spent time in a respectable parlor. Perhaps I should be given a handicap?”
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “What would you like to play? Charades? Cards? I’m quite good at chess,” she offered.
“I was thinking of a card game,” he began, but when her smile spread in confidence, he added a twist. “Of course, we’ll have to play by Pirate Rules.”
She smiled. She was a very good card player. “I might be sorry I said this, but I’m game.” She was sated after the meal and a little warm after the wine.
Roselyn was rewarded by his sexy chuckle. Oh my, is he a beautiful man. She watched her pirate as the cabin boy cleared the dishes, except for the glasses and brought another bottle of wine. When he wasn’t obnoxiously trying to seduce her and was just being himself, Jack was absolutely magnificent. His razor sharp jaw line emphasized a strong chin and cheekbones. His eyes weren’t brown. Brown was much to ordinary for Jack. His eyes were as black as his ebony hair. A well trimmed mustache spread over his full upper lip – not a bushy one like her father’s – but a well maintained strip of hair that pulled her eyes to his sensual mouth. She longed to run a finger over it to see if the hair was as soft as it looked.
“Are you ready to hear the rules, then?” Jack placed a deck of cards on the table between them. “We will each draw a card, high card wins; low card must drink and answer a question.”
Chapter Six
“I get to shuffle,” she declared. “I don’t trust you not to cheat.”
He handed her the cards with great ceremony and she mixed them. When she gave the deck back to him he fanned them out on the table.
“Ladies first,” he offered.
Roselyn smiled with confidence and extended her hand. She pulled out a card with her index finger and slid it across the table. She flipped it over and her smile faded when she revealed the six of hearts. Jack reached his hand over the deck of cards and, with a flourish, withdrew the queen of spades.
“Too bad.” He clicked his tongue. He splashed a good size gulp of wine in her glass and indicated for her to drink.
Roselyn brought the glass to her mouth and took a sip but he shook his head. “Oh no, my dear,” Jack told her, “Pirate Rules require that you drink all of it in one gulp.”
“Not very lady like,” she complained, but she tossed the rest of the wine back.
“Pirates don’t usually have a problem with unladylike women. Now for my question.” Jack tapped the table with his card and eyed her while he contemplated his first question. “What is your Christian name?”
She exhaled, relieved by the easy question. “Roselyn Louise Weldon.”
“Roselyn. Rose,” he purred. The way he said her name was sinful. She ought to know. Her parent had drilled her time and time again with what was sinful and what wasn’t. Her father definitely would not have approved of the way the words fell from his tongue.
She took a deep breath. “You draw first this time.”
“My pleasure.” He pulled the nine of diamonds.
Hers was the deuce of spades. She hoped his next question would be as easy.
“Where were you going on your merchant ship?”
She audibly exhaled. Another easy one. She answered after downing the wine he poured her. “I am for New Providence, to marry my fiancé, Rupert.”
“And who is Rupert? Why is he in New Providence?”
“I’m sorry,” Roselyn shook her head, “you need to win the next question. After all, these are your rules.”
“Right you are, dear Rose. Your turn.”
This time she triumphantly won the question. “Your accent is upper class English and you have alluded to a life in drawing rooms. Is your family of the aristocracy?”
“And the lady goes right for the throat.” How much to tell? “My father is an Earl. I am the third son. A man of absolutely no worth.”
She blinked at him. He said it so matter-of-factly he could almost believe it himself, that after all these years it really did mean nothing to him.
The next three questions went to the pirate. He learned her fiancé was a missionary, and that her father had died unexpectedly, leaving her without means. She intended to join the missionary and be wed ahead of their agreed-upon schedule. Jack wondered how her fiancé would take to her appearing with no advance word. New Providence and its hedonistic lifestyle had a way with even the most stalwart of men.
Roselyn drew the ten of diamonds and Jack drew the four of clubs. This time she thought for a few seconds before she asked her question. It was getting harder to think them all the way through. She’d had two glasses at dinner and had taken five rapid gulps of wine. That had to count for at least another glass, and with the way he filled her glass after each loss, it might have really been more like two more or maybe even three. She didn’t think she had ever had even three glasses of wine before and besides, her father had always insisted that her wine be watered at dinner.
Suddenly she had an inspiration. “Have you ever been in love?” she asked.
“I have loved many women,” Jack answered with a pirate’s bravado.
“That’s cheating!” she declared. “You have to answer the question or you’ll ruin the integrity of the game. Have you ever been in love?”
Handsome Jack thought back to the many women in his life. There was only one woman he had been in love with. He, a silly boy of nineteen and she, a lovely child of eighteen. They had been so young and madly in love. Her father refused to allow her to marry him as he had no title and a very small income. Like a naïv
e, impetuous youth, he ran off to make his fortune in the Navy, the service the only option available to him besides taking vows. She had professed her undying love and told him she’d wait for him…
“I did love a girl once, many lifetimes ago. Her name was Melinda and she married an earl. I hear she’s had three children and grown very fat.” He was surprised to find himself so candid.
“I’m so sorry,” Roselyn said, “about the marrying someone else part, not the growing fat part.”
He chuckled at her truthfulness. He was pleased to see the wine had loosened her. The tension around her mouth and eyes was nearly gone. She lost the next draw and gulped yet another healthy swig of wine.
“Have you ever been in love?” he asked her.
“I’m engaged,” she told him, like that was a sufficient answer.
“That doesn’t mean you’re in love with him.”
“That is a horrible question,” she declared indignantly, oblivious to the hypocritical nature of her protest. “I won’t answer it.”
“Oh dear,” his tone mocked. “Pirate Rules state you must face a penalty then.”
Her eyebrows flew up, but she really didn’t want to answer the question. “What kind of penalty?” she asked, with visions of walking planks and other “piratey” punishments swirling in her head.
Her pirate leaned back in the chair, and looked at her in contemplation, as if he debated the form of punishment and its severity. “I think a kiss will do.”
Roselyn blanched, but she didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t in love with Rupert. Did it really matter? Women got married because they had no skills, no money of their own and no way to live without a man. Love had nothing to do with it. But somehow, she thought the pirate would capitalize on that knowledge. She was engaged to Rupert because her father told her she was and, being a dutiful daughter, she had never offered an argument.
She seriously considered the prospect of a kiss. The fact that she thought about it at all was surely due to all the wine she’d consumed. Otherwise, she had no excuse for such wanton thoughts. But as she mulled over the punishment, her eyes were drawn to his mouth and his mustache, and her gaze settled there for a moment.
“One kiss? That’s all?” she asked, wanting to clarify the terms of the punishment.
“Only one,” he smiled at her silkily, “unless you refuse to answer another question. Or, of course, unless you like it so much that you want another.”
In her haughtiest manner, she told him, “I am sure one will be sufficient.”
When Jack stood from his chair, she did the same. He took a step towards her, and she thought he looked even more wolfish than before. She held her ground though, and he strode the remaining two steps until he stood directly in front of her with only inches between them. Roselyn closed her eyes and puckered her lips.
He chuckled, a deep rumbling Roselyn felt in her stomach and, in an unexpected development, even lower.
Jack brought a hand to her face and she felt him brush a lock of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind her ear. He circled one finger from her ear along her jaw line underneath her chin, and then gently nudged her chin so that her face tilted up.
His thumb strayed to her mouth, and he gently rubbed the pad of it along her bottom lip. The unexpected move surprised her and, when she parted her lips in bemusement, he lowered his head and took her mouth with his. His lips were warm and soft and the feeling they invoked was gentle and dear. Without moving his lips from hers, he gently caressed her mouth and stroked her bottom lip with his tongue. She tensed briefly at the unexpectedness of the sensation but then slipped back into a relaxed, languid stance. He intensified the kiss by degrees and eventually his tongue slipped into her mouth and the caress deepened. Both hands cradled her face and he deftly altered the angle of her head to accommodate his preference.
Roselyn’s initial trepidation soon gave way to interest and then she wasn’t thinking anymore at all. So this is a kiss.
The simple peck on the lips she’d received from Rupert when they were engaged, and then again when he left on his mission, shouldn’t even have been called by the same name as this kiss. She had felt absolutely nothing when her fiancé kissed her.
Handsome Jack’s kiss was a revelation.
She tasted of wine and innocence; a heady mix. He found himself deepening the kiss faster than he thought she would accept, but it was almost beyond his control. He had been amused when she’d lifted her face to him with the childish expression of a kiss: her lips puckered and her eyes squeezed shut. He’d chuckled, but as soon as their lips met, he no longer found anything about the kiss amusing.
The lovely girl in his arms made a soft mewling sound, and he altered the angle of his mouth to plunder it completely. What treasures she held, this sweet Rose. He pulled her against him, lifting her gently so that she stood on her tiptoes and his growing erection nestled in the cradle of her stomach.
Chapter Seven
That sudden awareness of his arousal brought her slamming back to reality. She placed both her hands on his chest and pushed hard against him. He immediately ended the kiss, but he didn’t remove his hands from around her. He slowly relaxed his grip, loosened his hands on her, and let her move ever so slightly away from him but still within the circle of his arms.
“Have you never been kissed before?” he whispered.
“Yes.” She was lying and surely he could tell. “No. Not like that.”
“It was lovely, don’t you agree, sweet Rose?”
Roselyn didn’t answer, but she felt her face go hot, blushing a color resembling her namesake.
“Please release me,” she asked quietly. Hoping both that he would and he wouldn’t.
He let his arms completely relax and let her go. He turned and sat on his chair, leaning back until it balanced on only two legs. He rested his crossed ankles on the table in a pose of exaggerated nonchalance.
“Sit back down, we’ll eat some fruit and finish our game.”
Roselyn picked up her glass and drank the last several swallows of wine and immediately regretted having done it. “My head is swimming. I don’t want any more wine.” Now she was embarrassed. Obviously, the kiss didn’t affect him at all. She placed one cool hand upon her flaming cheek and sat heavily in her chair. “I think that was more than one kiss.”
“Technically, my lovely, that was only one kiss. My lips never left yours.” He used a long, thin knife to slice an apple.
She watched him with fascination, her head was fuzzy from too much wine and the life-altering kiss. She sat at the table mesmerized by the knife and the man, and blinked her eyes sleepily. Roselyn was remarkably tired; deep down to the bone tired. She was quite sure she had never been this exhausted. How long ago was it that the merchant ship went down? Three weeks? Hard to believe it was just the day before.
Jack ate several apple slices while he contemplated her. He released her from their embrace but he hadn’t wanted to. More importantly, he didn’t want to think about why. Piracy was not an occupation that lent itself to introspection. He only allowed her escape because, when she pulled away from the kiss, he had seen fear in her eyes. He reminded himself harshly that women held no sway for him, and this little virgin wasn’t going to change that. Nevertheless, she was falling asleep at the table, and regardless of his reputation, he was not a cruel man.
Jack set the rest of the apple and the knife on the table and dropped his booted feet heavily on the plank floor. He rose to his feet, took her by the hand and drew her up. Like a deer, she looked skittish and about to bolt.
“You’ve had a very long day. I have cruelly gotten you drunk, and now you’re falling asleep at the table.” He gently tugged her hand and she acquiesced. She followed him slowly, if not warily. “Come on, I won’t bite you. Not even if you ask me to. Not tonight.” He set her on the edge of his enormous bed and she sank into the feathers. She blinked at him with heavy eyes. “All right, my beautiful Rose.” He reached behind her and
started on the row of buttons. “Let’s get this dress off you.”
“Thank you for the dress. I’ve never owned anything so beautiful in my whole life.” She pressed the dress on her legs and smoothed out wrinkles. “My father would not have liked this dress, and if he’d seen me in it, he would have had me reading bible verses on my knees for hours.”
Jack slid the dress off her ivory shoulders and pulled her to her feet again. The heavy material caught briefly on her lovely hips and then fell the rest of the way to the floor. She plopped back on the bed in her shift and corset.
“Well, I am a connoisseur of beautiful women, and I don’t know what was wrong with your father, but I love you in this dress.” Jack tossed his leg behind her and straddled her. She was cradled in his lap, one of his legs on either side of her. His fingers deftly worked the laces of the corset he’d tied several hours earlier.
She sat dutifully still. “I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that.”
“Saying what?” He stretched the laces wide and pulled the corset open. Roselyn inhaled deeply, filling her lungs completely. Jack had the lovely view over her shoulder of her breasts rising and falling as her chest expanded. “Saying that you’re not beautiful would be a lie, and I may be many things but I’m not a liar.”
Jack stood from the bed, deftly lifting her to her feet with him. He turned her to face him and he looked into her inebriated eyes. He knew that she probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning. And that was all the more reason why he couldn’t, why he wouldn’t, take advantage of her.
Like he said earlier, he was many things but lecher and rapist were not among them either. He had a reputation, that was true, but a reputation that he himself had built and cultivated, and at least ninety percent of which was a lie. He liked this woman. She was gutsy and brave and charming besides being beautiful. He hadn’t figured out exactly what her father had done to her, but he knew how harsh words from a beloved parent could crush a child’s soul, and he would do his best during their time together to make her see she was something special.
The Sea Rose Page 3
