My Lady Pirate

by Danelle Harmon

  She made a flippant gesture with her hand and shook her head. “Don’t try to stop me, dear, darling Admiral. I’m leaving. Tomorrow. After I replenish supplies. I’ve made up my mind and nothing you can say or do will sway me. Besides, what is there for me here in England? Your snobbish peers will never take to a sunburned woman who sails and curses and fights with a sword.”

  He merely leaned against the door with his arms crossed and one hand idly tugging at his

  earring, watching her, as Nelson’s words echoed through his mind . . .

  Tempt the mouse out of the hole.

  “They’ll never take to someone who kills,” she goaded.

  He refused to rise to the bait. “So, you really have to leave then, eh?”

  She rose and began to walk around the cabin once more, her words no longer controlled and detached, but coming out in hurried little bursts, as though she was about to lose her studied composure and wanted to get them out while she still could. “Yes, I have to go. You see, I left unfinished business back on my island. I need to take care of my dolphin. Water my flowers.

  Weed my garden . . . “

  She shot him a challenging glance, her head high, her eyes unnaturally bright.

  “I need to paint my dock. Make sure my island’s safe. See about getting a new set of topsails for Kestrel. . .”

  “Like hell you do,” he said softly.

  She glanced away, and in that fleeting moment, Gray knew his intuition had been right. The hauteur, the pride, the cool detachment—it was an act, just as he’d suspected. He knew women.

  He knew her. And he saw the longing in her face, the desperate plea for him not to leave her, not to abandon her—

  He sighed, and very gently asked, “What do you really want, Maeve?”

  She raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes were huge, and he saw her throat working

  as she bravely tried to contain her emotion.

  “What I really want is—oh, God, this is difficult for me to admit, to say—”

  He walked forward, took her hands in his own, squeezed them tightly. “Trust me.”

  “I—”

  “Trust me.”

  She drew a deep, tremulous sigh, raised her head, and met his patient gaze. “What I really want, Gray, is . . . to spend the rest of my life with you, the only man that I have ever truly loved, the only man who has been patient and tactical and determined enough to pierce my armor, to understand and love me for who I am. What I want is the courage to shed that armor . . . to put the drawbridge of my castle down so that it won’t be such a cold and empty house of stone.” She looked up at him, her eyes desperate. “What I really want is the courage to trust not only you, but others, with all my heart, with the knowledge that they won’t condemn me for the hard and savage woman that I am, and because of . . . certain unexpected things in my life right now—”

  “Maeve, dearest,” he said softly, and set her back so he could look into her eyes. He tipped her chin up, bent his brow to hers. “I am not going anywhere. You can begin by trusting me on that.”

  He smiled at her.

  Hesitantly, she smiled back.

  She took a deep, quivery breath. “What I want, Gray, is the courage to go crawling back to my parents, to ask for their forgiveness, and to do it knowing they may reject me. It’s hard for me to admit that I’m afraid—I mean, I’m a pirate queen, pirate queens aren’t supposed to be afraid—but I am. I’m more than afraid . . . I’m terrified.”

  “It’s all right to be afraid, Maeve.”

  “No, it’s not. I’ll bet you're never afraid.”

  “On the contrary.” He gave her a lopsided, dimpled smile. “Fear and the courage to admit it are part of being human.”

  “So you are afraid of some things, then?”

  “Hell, yes. I’m afraid of losing friends I love to war and battle. I’m afraid of going aloft in high winds. I’m afraid my sisters will meet rogues like me. And—”

  She looked up at him, her eyes huge.

  “—I’m afraid I'll fail to convince the woman in my arms how very much I love and adore

  her . . . and that she will leave me.” He smiled, gently, and touched his brow to hers. “No, I’m more than afraid,” he said, repeating the words she had used. “I’m terrified. “

  “Oh, Gray . . .”

  She went into his arms, her heart so swollen and heavy that she didn’t think her breast could contain it. He held her for a long moment, then he slid an arm behind her legs and in one easy motion hoisted her up into his arms. Kicking the door shut behind them, he carried her to the cushioned bench seat beneath the stern windows, where he set her down as gently as if she were his mother’s finest china.

  “Make love to me, Gray,” she whispered, trying to contain her sudden tears. “Convince me

  how much you love and adore me . . .”

  He smiled, his heart in his eyes. Then, joining her on the cushion, he bent his head and claimed her lips in a gentle, searing kiss that made her weep for realizing how much she had missed the feel of him, the exquisite, coming-home joy of being in his arms. He pulled a pin loose, then another, until her rich chestnut hair was loose around her shoulders; then, tenderly, he pulled the tiara free, smoothed her hair back, and kissed her again.

  “Say you’ll marry me, Maeve.”

  “Oh, Gray, don’t ask that . . . not now.”

  “I will continue to ask until I receive the response I seek,” he said, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. “Don’t think I give up as easily as all that.”

  “There are . . . obstacles.”

  “And there are solutions. Ways around things. Together, we can overcome them.” He

  cupped her cheek with his palm and looked searchingly down into her eyes. “Trust me, Maeve.”

  “I can’t marry an admiral, I’m a pirate!”

  “So retire. You don’t need to be a pirate. We’ve been through this before, love.”

  “I can’t give up my ship!”

  “I never said you had to. I merely said I’d not stand to have you engage in piracy.”

  “What about my crew?”

  “Give them your plantation house.”

  “But where would we live?”

  “Barbados.”

  “All the time?”

  “When we are not at sea.”

  “We?”

  “We.”

  “Gray, I’m pregnant.”

  He froze, his hand against her cheek, his face looking like a thunderbolt had just driven out of the sky and struck him. His mouth slowly fell open, and he stared at her as though he’d never seen her before.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m”—she gave a faint, frightened little smile— “going to have a baby.”

  He made a noise that sounded a bit like a sob, a bit like laughter—then his face broke into a radiant grin, and sweeping her up in his arms, he threw back his head and gave a great whoop of joy that had to have been heard by every ship in the anchorage. “By God, my prayers are answered, now you’ll have to marry me! Oh, glory, glory, glory is mine!”

  “Gray, a baby alone would not be enough to make me marry you.”

  The laughter died in his throat, and his face began to darken with fury. “I’ll tell you right now, Maeve, I’ll not have my child brought up as a damned pi—”

  She cut off his tirade with a finger across his lips. “I’d have to love you, besides”—she gazed into his eyes—“which . . . I do.”

  Slowly, she let her hand fall from his lips. He remained very still, as though not daring to breathe.

  “You will marry me, then, Maeve?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. Maybe. But you’d have to let me keep my ship. She was designed by my daddy, you know, and built by my grandfather. She's family. She's part of me. I learned how to sail aboard her and someday, I want our child to learn the ways of the sea as I did, on her deck, at her helm.”

  He nodded, slowly, but said noth
ing, waiting for her to continue.

  “I . . . I suppose I could give up the pirating, too. Yes, I’m sure I can give that up, I think.”

  She frowned, and a sudden hard glitter came into her eyes. “But this I tell you, Gray, that I will fiercely guard the lives of my loved ones, and if I ever see anyone—do you hear me— anyone, seeking to harm one hair of your or my baby’s head, I will do as I did with el Perro Negro, and if you don’t like that, you can just eat . . . worms!”

  “Eat worms?”

  Her nose came up with queenly hauteur and she looked away. “I am trying to refine my

  language as befitting the possible future wife of an admiral.”

  He sucked his lips between his teeth so he wouldn’t laugh. “Really, Majesty, you needn’t go to such extremes.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “All right then,” she said prettily, “eat shit.”

  He laughed, loudly, and saw an answering sparkle of humor in her eyes. And then she

  laughed too, that harsh, full-of-life bellow that reminded him of gale winds and rain squalls, blustery sunshine and ringing cutlasses. He took her into his arms and hugged her fiercely.

  “Ah, dearest, we must set a date,” he said, into her hair. “A very early date, given your delicate condition.”

  “I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet,” she said, and he realized, suddenly, that her sails had spilled their wind.

  Alarmed, he pulled back and stared into her face. “What is it, dearest?” he asked gently, cupping her cheeks in his hands and lifting her face to his.

  “Nothing,” she said, with a little shrug, and tried to look away.

  “Maeve—I will permit no . . . uh, I mean there should be no secrets between us.”

  She gave a little smile at his sheepish look, but her eyes were unnaturally glassy behind the dark fringe of her lashes. “It’s just that”— she glanced hopelessly out the stern windows, her lips tight with pain —“it's just that here I’ve finally found my Gallant Knight and my own daddy won’t be here to give me away at my wedding . . .”

  He watched her throat working, her chin coming up as though to deny her own pain, and his heart ached for her. “So write to him now, Maeve,” he said gently. “Don't leave it any longer.”

  “No, Gray. I can’t write. Think of the shock to them. They still think I’m dead.”

  “Yes, love, they do think that. Which is why you must write them.”

  “I can't, Gray.” She looked up at him, her beautiful tiger eyes floating in tears of pain and fear and despair. “Don’t you understand? I can’t, because”—she looked down, suddenly finding her thumbnail of great interest—“I can’t bring myself to tell them what I’ve become. Better that my father remember me as his innocent little daughter, not . . . the woman I now am. Better that he go on thinking that I’m dead.”

  “No, Maeve. That is never better.”

  “Don’t force me, Gray. Please.”

  He said nothing, only looking at her with his heart in his eyes.

  “My parents are decent people,” she continued, still picking at her thumb. “If they knew of the things I have done. . .” She looked up, her lower lip beginning to quiver. “Gray, please understand, I can’t go through any more rejection, I just can’t!”

  He sat helplessly, wishing she could see herself as he saw her, as her beloved and much—

  worshipped daddy would surely see her.

  Her eyes were desperate, pleading, and bright with unshed tears. “You understand, don’t

  you, Gray?”

  He smiled gently, curving an arm around her shoulders and hugging her sad little body close to his. “Of course I do, dearest. In time, you will put your demons to rest. But if I may add my own thoughts to the matter, I should think your parents would be quite proud of you for surviving as well as you have . . . and, very, very excited that they will be gaining not only a daughter, but a grandchild as well.”

  She swallowed hard and looked away.

  “Furthermore,” he added softly, “I cannot imagine any parents preferring their little girl to be dead over her having become a lady pirate.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes huge in pools of unspilt tears. “I don’t think I can talk about this anymore, Gray. I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to cry. Someday, maybe, I’ll write them, but not now.”

  Long moments went by. She leaned into the comforting curve of his arm, wishing she were

  braver than she was.

  He said nothing, but just held her close.

  They sat together for a long moment; then, eventually, he let his leg swing over and

  purposely bump hers. She looked up at him, and found him smiling down at her, his eyes full of teading confidence, and in that moment she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone, anything, in the entire span of her life.

  “Oh, Gray—” She reached up to touch the golden tassels of one of his epaulets. “You’re not disappointed in me, are you?”

  He was still gazing at her, his eyes twinkling. “Naaaah.”

  “Angry with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t know what you see in me; I’m a coward, really, I am. And I have behaved

  abominably. If you are angry with me, you have every right to be . . . ”

  “Now, why on earth would you think I’m angry with you?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “Have I, now?”

  “Don’t play innocent. You were ignoring me. Pretending I didn’t exist. Inviting Aisling and Sorcha to your ship but purposely excluding me. You even stopped sending those . . . those love letters.”

  “I do everything for a reason.” He leaned over and kissed her ear. “You should know that by now.”

  “You were intentionally avoiding me? Excluding me?”

  “I was. But only in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, you'd realize that you missed me as much as I was missing you.” He smiled. “And now that my secret is out, I suppose you will be angry with me. ”

  She playfully pushed him away, his good-natured teasing driving away the gloom brought

  on by thoughts of her family. “You’re a real blackguard, d'ye know that, Gray? Sometimes I hate the fact you’re so damned . . . tactical. ”

  “Do you? I can cease being an admiral for a little while, then, and be your pirate again if you like.”

  He leaned close, and she felt his tongue slipping out to circle the inner folds of her ear, driving a shiver down her spine.

  “You are a pirate in the truest sense of the word. And now you are trying to rob me of my sense just as you have stolen my heart. God, I love you.”

  “Ah, how I have longed to hear those words again!”

  Trembling, she shut her eyes as his lips moved down the sensitive skin behind her ear.

  “Know what I wish, Gray?”

  His legs bumped against hers. “What?”

  She gave him a girlishly shy smile. ‘That’s you’d make love to me, right here and now, in broad daylight.”

  “Oh no, the baby—”

  “The baby will be fine. And I want to be ravished by an admiral.”

  He grinned hard enough to raise his dimple. “So, my lady pirate has her own fantasies, eh?”

  “Blast it, Gray, don’t make me beg!”

  “As if I could.” His eyes glinted. “Well then, dearest, let’s indulge your fantasy.”

  Almost shyly, she rose up on her knees and faced him, looking lush, rumpled, and lovely;

  she put her arms around him, kissed each tasseled epaulet with its silver star of rank. Then she slid the coat from his shoulders, gently pushing it back and away and down, and kissed him through his shirt.

  “I wonder,” he said jokingly, his eyes twinkling, “if you would still love me if I were

  anything but an admiral.”

  “I loved you when I thought you were a traitorous spy, I loved you when I thought you were a thieving freebooter, I
loved you even when I thought I hated you. Don’t laugh, that makes perfect sense! Besides, how do I know you don’t love me just because I am—I mean, was—a pirate?”

  His dark gaze roved down the front of her gown, raising the heat of her blood, and he

  chuckled softly. “You have me there, Maeve. Guess you’re just going to have to trust, eh?”

  Trust. He’d taught her much about that. If only she dared to do the same where her family was concerned . . .

  She slid off the cushions and stood before him in the open V of his legs. The evidence of his desire for her was all too visible beneath the snug white breeches. Trembling with anticipation, Maeve turned her back to him, allowing him to unfasten her gown, and sighing with pleasure at the warm, gentle brush of his hands against her skin. She felt him clearing the hair from her neck, fumbling with the clasp of the sharks’-tooth necklace. It slipped free, and he held it up, looking at it, as though it symbolized all the defenses that she had carried with her for so long.

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’ve always had a fantasy of making love to Anne

  Bonney. But I’ll bet she wasn’t half the pirate queen you are, Maeve.”

  “And I,” said she, “have always had a fantasy of some gallant sea captain coming along to sweep me off my feet. But I find that admirals are far more exciting.”

  “You’d damn well better. Because if I ever catch you turning those tiger eyes on anyone but me, I’ll have you strung up to the yardarm so fast you won’t know what hit you!”

  “And if I ever catch you flirting with anyone but me, I’ll make you eat this necklace of mine and God bless the consequences!”

  He laughed, a hearty, deep, baritone sound of sheer delight. “Ah, Maeve . . . How I love

  you!”

  Facing him, she put her hands on his thighs and gazed into his eyes, her knees pressed

  against the bench seat and her belly just inches from that rigid tumescence. “And I love you, Gray. I’m sorry I’ve made your life . . . difficult.”

  “Difficult? You have made it a veritable hell! But it has been quite an adventure, I grant you that. I would not have had it otherwise.”

  She grinned, thinking of other kinds of adventures, and playfully dragged a finger across his thigh.

  “Well?” he said, arching a dark brow.