by Paula Quinn
Hell, Alex thought, hearing her, she was his. This wondrously strong woman was his. He was proud of her for standing up for what was important to her. So many men he knew wouldn’t. He couldn’t wait to start his life with her at his side.
After more brief farewells, the MacGregors and the Grants left the West African coast and Poseidon’s Adventure set sail for Madagascar.
Andersen was finally dead, along with almost all the men he had arrived with. Alex disliked privateers almost as much as he disliked the navy, excluding David Pierce and his soldiers, of course.
Sam had sustained a minor wound to his shoulder from Andersen’s pistol and would live to see many other days. Alex was glad for it. He and his friend still had many adventures left. He was eager to get started.
Alex and Caitrina stood together on the poop deck and watched the light of Stirling’s Pride grow smaller and dimmer in the distance. Alex closed his arms around her from his place behind her and smiled into her neck. “I want to take ya to me bed and stay there with ya until we drop anchor in Madagascar.”
She slipped around in his embrace and faced him, her breasts pressed against him. “Alas, it canna’ be so.”
He leaned down and bit her bottom lip softly. “Why can’t it?”
“We have nae herb to prevent a child between us just yet.”
Just yet? She wanted his children then. He imagined her heavy with his babe and it made him hard and ready to begin. He prayed he could father them.
“We fergot to procure some on Parrot Cay.”
“Nay, we didn’t ferget, me love.” He pulled a small pouch from his sashes and held it up. “I obtained it before ya refused to come with me.”
“Well then, Captain Kidd.” She looped her arms more tightly about his neck. “What are we waiting fer?”
They endured one more interruption before they made it to Alex’s cabin. This time though, Alex didn’t mind.
The sound of a dog barking was what had stopped him on his way to the quarterdeck. Pierce had left the ship. Sam was seeing him off, even now. They would sail together up the coast and meet again at their journey’s end.
Why was Risa still here?
He turned, hearing her, and looked at Sam behind her as she cantered toward him, tail wagging.
“She travelin’ with us, then?” he asked his friend, hoping she was.
“’Twould seem so,” Sam told him, alive and well save for his bandaged shoulder. “She wouldn’t leave the ship when David called to her. He tried, too, trust me.”
Alex laughed and called Risa to follow him and Caitrina, but a moment after closing the cabin door, it opened again and Alex pushed Risa out.
Trina opened her eyes again, as the need to look at him overwhelmed her yet again. Alexander Kidd was the most beautiful man she’d ever encountered. Poised above her, he smiled when she looked. He was looking, too. She ran her fingers through his hair, clearing the sun-beaten locks from his eyes. She loved staring into his eyes while he made love to her. It made her feel a bit more wild inside. Like now, the way she groaned and closed her legs around him even higher. Looking at him made her want to run her palms down his strong shoulders and corded belly. He was so hard and tight everywhere.
She arched her back, trembling at the flame scorching her core. Alex held her with one arm and ran his rough palms over her breasts while he kissed her and thrust into her as deep as she would take him.
She watched his release and almost wept at the intimacy of it. She almost wished his seed had a purpose. She took him close and held him while he tossed back his head and clenched his jaw.
When he collapsed beside her, she didn’t mind waiting. She loved lying with him and talking with him afterward. She would take him again later and show him little mercy. But now, she wanted to talk to him.
“What did ye think of my kin?”
He smiled, looking into her eyes. “Yar father loves ya, so fer that alone, I like him. Colin MacGregor seems a bit harder around the edges. Kyle told me he was a general, aye?”
Trina nodded and played with his hair. “He’s the fiercest of my uncles fer certain, but not with us, not with his kin, and never with his wife and bairns. With them, he is a verra’ different man.”
“I like him.”
Trina smiled and leaned up to kiss his chin. She loved his chin; strong, tapering into a shadowed square, darker in the center from his cleft. Mercy, how she loved him.
“Wait until ye meet the women.”
He gazed into her eyes, filling himself with her, her with him. “I’ve met whom they’ve reared, Caitrina. I already know they are extraordinary.”
“Ye know,” she told him, running her hands over the tight, hard planes of his chest and belly, “if ye continue to sweep my heart up in hands with yer pretty words, ye’ll leave me nothing but my body, raw and ready to take what I want from ye.”
His eyes grew darker on her. “Ya want to take from me, then?”
She nodded and bit one end of her smile. “Aye, I want every inch.”
He licked his lips, wanting to give them to her, growing hard and powerful before her. She went after it, lifting herself up and straddling him between her thighs.
“I want to impale myself upon yer sleek lance and have my gyrations guided by my arse in yer hands.”
He obliged by cupping her buns and leading her over his tip, then down, upon him. She smiled at his deep groanings and his trembling hands, wanting to push her down hard on all of him, but resisting. Driving him a bit more mad—at least, that was her intention—she leaned down, covering him with her hair, and ran her tongue along his jaw.
“I want to show ye…”—she closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck as she slid down his length, resisting as he grew wider toward the base; he was big and hard and he might always hurt, but she loved it—“that ye’ve been wasting all yer gifts…”—she bore down, tossing back her head—“wasting all yer gifts on the unworthy. I am what ye truly want and all ye’ll ever need.”
She rode him like she meant to possess him, like an untamed creature, wild with desire. He held her by her hips, rolling her over him, up and down until he could no longer stop himself from letting go and leaning up to snatch her nipple into his mouth.
With one hand on her arse and the other on the small of her back, he guided her over his length with long, languid strokes until her flame burst into colors she’d never seen before. She thought she was dying. Still, he moved into her, out of her, over and over, stoking the fire, making her scream out in ecstasy while she found sweet, exhilarating, blissful release.
Chapter Forty-One
His map turned out to be of little help in finding the Quedagh Merchant, but, rather, the locations of twenty or so villages. Each village, David Pierce told him, held a clue as to the whereabouts of the treasure. If found in the correct order, the clues would lead to the ship. His father had made certain that if the map had fallen into the wrong hands it would still be near impossible to understand.
But the search to find it was worth it. With a unique blend of African and Asian landscapes, Madagascar was still the most beautiful place on the earth in Alex’s estimation. The enormous island boasted more types of palm trees than anyplace else, along with baobab trees, orchids, and herbs. Thankfully they’d arrived in the dry season, otherwise they would have to contend with overbearing heat, monsoons, and tropical cyclones. Trina and Kyle enjoyed watching ring-tailed lemurs leaping through trees and hanging on branches from their tails and chameleons of every size, shape, and color.
The Malagasy people were friendly and quite beautiful and very sympathetic to the pirate way of life. Such sympathy, along with fresh water, an abundance of food, the absence of any type of military, and no rules, made it a particularly popular pirate hideaway. On this trip, Alex avoided the most popular spots, like St. Mary’s Island and Ranter Bay, in an effort to keep attention off him and his hunt.
It took almost a month of searching through mangrove swamps and
villages, living with the locals, and learning about the rumors surrounding the famous ship Adventure’s Prize, as they knew it. One family remembered William Kidd and the crew that brought the coveted ship to the island. They directed him to another family, and then to another, each family knowing a different fact about a certain man from the crew.
In the second-to-last village on the map, they found Josoa. Josoa had never met David Pierce or Hendrik Andersen, or any of William Kidd’s crew. He’d sailed across the waters with his brothers, his father, and his uncles. They were paid handsomely in gold to leave the ship in the cove and that was what they did. But the gold became a curse and their neighbors robbed them and forced his family to leave their village with nothing. But Josoa knew Captain Kidd had a son. William had spoken highly of him and told them Alexander would be coming for the ship. Josoa had remained in the village, waiting for him to come. He wanted gold to help his family. He wanted it, or he wouldn’t give Alex the location.
Alex promised him all the gold he wanted.
Josoa brought them to a secluded cove, one among hundreds of coves along the coast. There, hidden quite well within the dense mangroves, noisy birds, and mosquitoes was the five-hundred-ton ship. She stood tall and, despite the overgrowth of vines along her masts and her sails stripped, the Quedagh Merchant was beautiful. His father’s prize. He would have liked to keep the Armenian brigantine. But it was impossible. She was too recognizable. He’d have to leave her after he took the treasure she carried. Alex could live a good life and leave enough for his children. His crew need never pillage again. They would be rich for two lifetimes.
But that wouldn’t stop them from seeking more adventures on the high seas. Pirating was in their blood.
But with every treasure comes the worry that someone can take it from you. So, after dividing their shares, Alex decided to bring his back to Camlochlin.
“We’ll stay fer as long as ya want,” he told Caitrina while they sat around a fire after a delicious meal of fresh meat and fruit. “A year, perhaps. Long enough to wed ya.”
She smiled and at least four of the men around the fire beamed at her even as she clasped her hand in Alex’s.
“Will ya be stayin’ with us then, Gustaaf?” Alex asked him, grinning at the Dutchman’s obvious fondness for his beloved.
“If the captain would have me, Captain.”
“Of course, he will have ye, Gustaaf,” Caitrina promised him. “We love ye. Dinna’ we, Alex?”
His smile didn’t falter. Besides Sam and Kyle, Gustaaf was the only man whose loyalty Alex completely trusted. “We do.”
“I’ll be sailin’, too,” Mr. Bonnet announced. “I have no family but this.”
Alex raised his cup to that and pulled Caitrina closer. She smelled good, like lavender with a hint of salt underneath. He caught Sam watching them and raised his cup again.
“Where should we sail next, Quartermaster?” he asked his friend.
Sam smiled and then looked at Caitrina in a way he never had before, with adoration. “I won’t be sailin’ with ya again, Captain.”
Alex lowered his cup and his smile faded. Sam loved her. Did he love her enough to leave everything he’d known for eight years?
“How long has this been decided, Sam?”
His friend shrugged. “Fer a time now. I need to go.”
Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing with his ears. Sam was in love with Caitrina and had to leave because of it? Once they parted and… “What do ya plan on doin’ then?”
“David,” Sam told him. “I’m goin’ with David to take me place among his men.”
“As a naval soldier?” Hell, no, this wasn’t what he was hearing. “Don’t be a fool, Sam. I can live with yar feelins’ fer me wife. Ya’re not the only one who feels them.”
“I can’t live with them,” Sam told him. “I’ll be yar ally in the navy, Alex, watchin’ yar back from another angle.”
He was serious. He was sailing back with his brother. Alex wanted to be angry with him for choosing the life of a soldier over being a pirate. But he loved and admired Sam for his steadfast allegiance, even over his own heart. This was the man he’d come to trust after his father was hanged.
“’Twas an honor to sail with ya, Sam. I’ll miss ya, brother.”
“Aye.” Sam nodded. “I’ll miss ya, too. I suggest we elect Kyle MacGregor to succeed me.”
Everyone nodded. No one smiled.
Trina knew Alex’s heart was heavy because of Sam’s leaving. She certainly wouldn’t rush his mourning over the loss of his friend. But she could help ease his pain by offering him comfort. He found it each night in her arms, and in return he gave her his passion, unrestrained and a bit wicked. He showered her with jewels and the finest skeins of silk and she showered him with love and with praise for the man in full that he was. By the time they sailed for Camlochlin, his heaviness had lifted and at night, sometimes at the helm, he thanked her for it.
She didn’t care anymore about living a risky, adventurous life. She just wanted a life with Alex.
She woke on the third day of the journey home to a wet tongue and foul breath.
A life with Alex and his dog.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Paula Quinn lives in New York with her three beautiful children, three overprotective Chihuahuas, and a loud umbrella cockatoo. She loves to read romance and science fiction and has been writing since she was eleven. She loves all things medieval, but it is her love for Scotland that pulls at her heartstrings.
You can learn more at:
PaulaQuinn.com
Twitter @Paula_Quinn
Facebook.com/Paula.Quinn.Romance
* D P G R O U P . O R G *
On a mission to escort a Scottish lass to the royal court, General Daniel Marlow unexpectedly falls for his beautiful, spirited charge. But when he learns her shocking secret, Marlow must choose between love—or betrayal of queen and country…
Please see the next page for a preview of
The Scandalous Secret of Abigail MacGregor.
SKYE, SCOTLAND
EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Chapter One
Faither! A letter was waitin’ fer us in Broadford. ’Tis from London!”
Abigail MacGregor looked up from her embroidery and watched her twin brothers, Tamhas and Braigh, cut across her father’s private solar and hand him the folded parchment.
“Who is it from, Faither?” She set her embroidery down and rose up out of her chair. She smiled at her mother, convalescing in her settee by the window, and pulled her blanket up to her chin.
“Lads,” he said to his sons instead of answering her. “Go fetch yer brother and yer uncles.”
“Which ones?” Braigh asked.
“All of ’em.”
“Robbie, who is it from?” his wife asked softly when the boys were gone.
“’Tis from… the queen.”
Abby turned to her father. Her mother sat straight up. Very few people in England knew Davina MacGregor was the true firstborn daughter of King James and Ann Hyde. She’d been secluded in an abbey her whole life, unknown to her sisters or anyone else, to ensure a Catholic successor should James die without a son. Those who suspected her existence didn’t know she lived with the MacGregors somewhere on Skye. So why was the queen, her mother’s sister, penning them a letter?
“What does she say?” her mother asked, her voice shaken.
Her father read the letter. She hadn’t seen his face drain of so much color since his beloved wife came down with the fever three months ago.
“She says…” He stopped and looked up from the parchment, his blue eyes startlingly vivid. “She says she knows of ye and she commands yer attendance in London. She wants assurances that ye have nae plans to challenge her for the throne.”
Abby shook her head. Her mother couldn’t leave Camlochlin. The exceptionally longer winter had struck her sleight body like a plague. She was just beginning to
recover and it was still brisk outside.
Her father shared her thoughts, proving it when he held up his palm to stop her mother from speaking. “Ye’re not goin’, Davina. My mind is set.”
Thank God. Abby gave a soft sigh of relief. When her father set his mind one way, he rarely moved it again.
“Robbie, my love, how do ye know I was going to suggest anything of the sort?”
He looked at the letter clutched in his hands and then at her. “Ye will when ye hear the rest. But wait a moment fer the others. ’Tis something everyone should hear.”
Abby swallowed and sat down beside her mother. What was it? What was so important that everyone needed to hear? She worried that life here would change now that the monarchy knew of her mother’s existence.
She and her mother didn’t have to wait too long before her uncles arrived. Her brother wasn’t with them.
“Where’s Adam?” her father asked the twins.
“He was with Murron MacDonald,” Tamhas said.
“He said he’d be here shortly,” Braigh added.
Her father didn’t wait. When he told them who’d penned the letter, Abby’s uncle Tristan poured them all whisky from her father’s decanter.
“She threatens to send her full army to Skye to come get her if Davina refuses to go to England.” He stopped when his wife gasped. He looked around at his brothers and his brother-in-law to gauge their reactions. He’d already decided Davina wasn’t going. That meant the army would come. Their lives and their family’s lives were at risk. Robert MacGregor was chief to his clan but he still discussed his decisions with them. If they all didn’t agree with this one, what would he do? “She also commands,” he continued without looking at the parchment again, “that my wife go with no Highlander to accompany her, but with the queen’s personal guards only.”
