Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02]

by A Pirates Pleasure

  “WHAT DO YOU WANT

  FROM ME?”

  SKYE ASKED THE PIRATE.

  Silver Hawk smiled slowly, assessing her. “I’m not quite sure yet. I’ve decided that I could tame you. Perhaps I shall not ransom you at all. Perhaps I shall keep you with me forever.”

  Skye gasped. “Don’t tease me!”

  His fingers dug more forcefully into her arms. “Indeed, why should you think that I tease you, Skye Kinsdale? We pirates revel in debauchery and conquest. It would be most natural to return the ship … but not the maiden.”

  A PIRATE’S PLEASURE

  A Dell Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Dell mass market edition published July 1989

  Dell mass market reissue / February 2008

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 1989 by Heather Graham Pozzessere

  Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81577-4

  www.bantamdell.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Prologue

  April 4, 1718

  Cameron Hall

  Tidewater, Virginia

  “Pirates! Damned pirates!”

  The explosive words rocked the apparent serenity of the coming night. It was sunset along the James River. Soft hues of orange and tawny yellow were falling against the moss-touched oaks and the gentle sloping grasses leading to the river. Someone hummed somewhere as they worked, and birds sang melodic songs.

  “Pirates!” came the resounding thunder once more, and it seemed that a hush fell upon the day.

  Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia slammed his hand upon the polished pine side table by his chair on the porch to further emphasize his fury and displeasure. Lord Cameron leaned idly against one of the massive pillars and glanced at his friend with a wry smile. Alexander was obsessed. A bright and reasonable man, attractive in his person, dress, and manner, he was quite popular among the colonists, from the lords and ladies to the scullery maids. His eyes were intelligent and grave, and outraged though he was, he still appeared the aristocrat—from his fine white wig, the ends of it neatly curling over his shoulders, to his peach brocade frockcoat to his soft mustard knee breeches and silver buckled shoes. At the moment, though, he was lacking his customary oratorical prowess. He was fixed upon one word.

  “Pirates! I say,” Spotswood repeated. He did not slam his hand against the table again, but preferred to rescue his glass of sherry before his own vitality sent it crashing to the floor. “Pirates, pirates, pirates! They will be the bane of me yet!” His eyes narrowed sharply upon his host, Petroc Cameron, Lord Cameron of Cameron Hall, and “Roc” to his friends and relations. Cameron was sharp, and like his father before him, he was a tall man, young, striking, with strong, handsome features and some indomitable presence about him that instantly attracted the eye and commanded respect. Like many Camerons, he possessed sharp gray eyes that could sizzle silver by certain light. His hair was dark when he disdained to wear a wig; this late afternoon, with the falling sun upon it, the color seemed like jet.

  Even in stillness he was vital.

  Now, casually leaning against the pillar and looking out to the James River, he still emitted some energy that belied his nonchalance. Humor touched his eyes, but more. If there were danger, then danger be damned. He was a man to meet a challenge.

  “Sir,” he reminded his friend, “you cannot single-handedly do away with them. But I swear it, sir, we shall do our best to cast the worst of them into gibbets.”

  “Bah!” Spotswood protested impatiently. “I would chain them all in gibbets by the docks as warning. A pity that chains and gibbets cost so much money, I cannot afford to display the more petty offenders!” He leaned back and looked down the broad slope of grass to the river. It was a beautiful place, this, the Cameron estate. Strategically planned, it combined the best of an English country manor with the wild beauty of the colony. Because of the depth of the river, ships could come to the Cameron docks as if they came to Lord Cameron’s very front door. The house itself was both practical and elegant. Spotswood had been friends with this young Cameron’s father in the days when he had planned the governor’s mansion in Williamsburg, and he had often thought of Cameron Hall when he spoke with the architects. The house had been begun in late 1620s. There had been just the main hall and upstairs bedrooms then. There was a brick in the cellar in the foundation attesting to the date of the building. “With these bricks we build our house, Jamie and Jassy Cameron, the Year of Our Lord 1627. The foundation will be strong, and God granting, our house and our family will stand the test of time.”

  The family had, so far, stood strong with the best and the worst of times. The eldest son always grew to be a member of the Governor’s Council. To Spotswood, they were proving to be very fine friends, indeed. None so staunch as Roc Cameron.

  “Sir,” Cameron said now, “you do well against the hordes.”

  Was he teasing him? Spotswood never knew. He swept out a hand indicating the paper he had just been reading and had tossed down with an incredible flourish just before he had banged the table. “There’s another article in there by a so-called wife of that Edward Thatch, Teach, Tech—whatever his bloody name is! The man marries women right and left!”

  “And they live to tell of it,” Roc Cameron said gravely. Teach was a pirate who was beginning to draw attention to himself. Blackbeard, they called him, because of his ferocious facial hair. It was rumored that he hailed from Bristol, and that he had served in Queen Anne’s War, and that he had gone on to be tutored beneath the pirate Hornigold to learn a new trade as a scavenger upon the high seas. But he wasn’t the worst of the lot. “Logan is running around out there. And One-Eyed Jack. Those are the two who not only steal cargo, but are heinously careless with human life.”

  Spotswood looked at him with a slow, curious nod. He sat back, lacing his fingers together, watching his younger friend. “And then there’s the Silver Hawk.”

  “And then there’s the Silver Hawk,” Cameron agreed flatly.

  “We need new commissions,” Spotswood complained. “Queen Anne lies dead, and that German upon the throne—”

  Roc’s laughter interrupted him and the lieutenant governor flushed. “Well, the man is a German! He’s the King of England, and he doesn’t even speak the king’s good English! What is this world coming to? Pirates ever plaguing the seas, and a king who can’t even speak his country’s English
!”

  “Better than a papist, sir, or so, it seems, the country decided.” Roc Cameron considered himself a Virginian. The affairs of the mother country were of concern to him only when they concerned Virginia. He was passionately in love with his land. The ultimate gentleman farmer, and a fine merchant, despite his title. That was the way with the New World, or so it seemed. A man could make great riches here, but only if a man were hard and bright and willing to work.

  Spotswood loved Virginia himself. But he was an Englishman, appointed by the Crown. He might mutter about the king being a German, but still he bowed to England in all things. Queen Anne, the last of the Stewart monarchs, had died in 1714. That poor lady’s many children had all died before her, and rather than accept her half-brother—a papist—on the throne, the English were willing to look to Germany for a Protestant king. The religious issue was a crucial one. In the colonies, men tended to be more tolerant of religious differences. But even here, every man of property or means belonged to the Church of England, and he kept his vows to the church as sacred.

  Spotswood sighed. Always a challenge! The Indians had beset men a century ago. Now it was the damned pirates.

  “Roc—” the governor began, leaning forward. But he was suddenly cut off by a huge commotion coming from the house.

  The porch lay off the grand central hallway. It was situated so that the river breeze swept from the open hallway doors in the back to the open hallway doors at the front, when the weather was hot. Now the governor and Lord Cameron heard a bellowing voice and the clump of heavy footsteps. The governor frowned. Roc Cameron grinned and shrugged. “Lord Kinsdale, I believe,” he said dryly.

  Peter Lumley, Lord Cameron’s butler and valet, appeared first. A man of about forty, he was lean and small, but straight and stiff with indignation.

  “Sir, I did tell his lordship that you were engaged, and with the lieutenant governor! But he insisted—”

  “That’s quite fine, Peter,” Roc said, pushing away from his pillar. He thrust back the folds of his fawn-colored frockcoat to plant his hand upon his hips. He waited. A second later a small portly man with blue eyes and wild wisps of gray hair appeared.

  “Cameron! Have you heard of it! More and more debauchery upon the open seas!” He held the very newspaper that the governor had allowed to fall to the floor.

  “Yes, Theodore, I have heard of it,” Roc said. Lord Theodore Kinsdale paused to bow in acknowledgment to the governor. Spotswood nodded and met Cameron’s eyes above the little man. They both smiled. Theodore Kinsdale was a good man, a fine man. He supported the governor in all things, and held many a merry ball. He owned vast sugar estates in the islands, but preferred to live in Williamsburg. He did, in fact, despise the three-hour drive out to Cameron Hall, and so, for him to have arrived here unannounced, he must be flustered and upset indeed.

  “Alexander, what do you intend to do about all of this!” Theodore demanded.

  Spotswood glared at him. “I have ships all over the coast! I am doing things, man!”

  “Have a drink, Theo,” Roc Cameron suggested.

  “Don’t mind if I do, don’t mind if I do. Scotch!”

  He sat in one of the handsome twined chairs upon the porch and mopped his face with a scarf. He stared from Roc to Alexander Spotswood, and then back again. “My daughter sails,” he moaned.

  “When?” Roc Cameron said.

  “Her ship has left this very day.”

  Spotswood cleared his throat. “There’s no reason to believe that your ship will be attacked.”

  “There is every reason to believe that the Silver Messenger will be taken! I am a wealthy man. The ship sails with a tremendous cargo. Why, her jewels alone are worth a fortune.” He stared straight at Roc Cameron. Cameron stiffened. The two gentlemen were engaged in a running feud. Roc Cameron’s father and Theo had betrothed their children at birth.

  Roc now found such an arrangement barbaric. He preferred to choose his own bride, at his own time. And rumor had reached him, even from England. The girl wanted nothing to do with him. He didn’t consider himself unduly proud, but admittedly, her rumored refusal annoyed him. Still, it made matters easy for him. He had vowed to his father upon his deathbed to uphold his every promise. To keep his honor.

  “I’m sure that she will be safe—” Alexander began, trying to mollify Theo.

  But Theo would have none of it. He jumped up, staring at Lord Cameron. “Roc, please! Your father was my dearest friend. You can make sure that she is safe! You have friends among the pirates—”

  “Friends!” Roc Cameron exploded.

  Theo lowered his voice just a shade, clamping his hands together, trying to hide his agitation. “She is my life!” he whispered. “She is all that I have left! I ordered her to return home to marry you! Now she sets sail. All right. You have not friends among the pirates, you have relations—”

  “I do not claim pirates as relations!” Roc said firmly. He knew that the lieutenant governor was staring at him, and he cast the man a warning glare, then returned his attention to Kinsdale. “Sir! You would make it sound as if I fraternize with the likes of pirates.”

  Governor Spotswood grinned at Roc, sitting back, preparing to enjoy the promised show. Roc Cameron frowned to him darkly but the governor’s grin widened.

  “They say,” Theo said, his fists clenched by his side, “they say that the Silver Hawk is a Cameron—”

  “He is no Cameron!”

  “That the silver eyes give him away. They say, too, that out of some curious respect for the family name, he is willing to negotiate with you. It is rumored that he is quick to seize your ships, and quick to return them for a reasonable fee. They say that you have some power, that you have even been to that island of his and negotiated with him. By God, Petroc! You must help me!”

  Cameron threw up his hands. “So, milord, this pirate comes from some ill-begotten and illegal branch of my family! So he is a bit less willing to cut my throat than yours. What would you have of me?”

  Theo was silent for a long moment. Then he drew a scroll from within his pocket. “Marry her. Now.”

  “What?” Cameron exploded incredulously.

  “Marry my daughter now. Fulfill the vow you made to your father.”

  “The girl isn’t even here—”

  “I have proxy papers. I acquired them when I was in London.”

  “But your daughter—”

  Theo waved a hand in the air. “She has signed them. Oh, I grant you, she doesn’t know what she signed, she was arguing with me—speaking with me, that is—about other matters. But it is all well and legal, I assure you. Marry her now—”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Silver Hawk is your cousin. Because he might find my ship, and my daughter. And even if he does not, many of the others will respect his relationship with you, they will fear what he may do if they seize that particular ship.”

  “This is insane!”

  “No! Cameron, you do not understand!” The man’s voice trembled, his countenance had gone white with emotion. “It’s the darkness, you see. She cannot stand the darkness.”

  Kinsdale was losing his mind.

  Roc Cameron wasn’t prone to rudeness, but he threw up his hands, turned around, and started walking down the slope of the estate toward the water. Kinsdale! The man was too much. Roc could not agree to the insanity.

  Nearing the bottom of the slope, he turned away, not wanting to see the workers on the docks. He stared down at his ship, the gunned sloop the Lady Elena, named for his mother. It would be time to sail again soon. Very soon.

  Inhaling sharply, he turned away and strode back toward the eastern side of the house. The outbuildings were there. Neat cottages for the servants, the smokehouse, the kitchen, the stables, the blacksmith’s shop, the cooper’s workhouse, the laundry. Far below them, enveloped by trees, lay the graveyard.

  He walked there and paused. His mother and father and an infant child lay closest to the new fence
. A hundred years of Camerons lay beyond them.

  He walked back to the slate headstones that his father had ordered re-etched just before his death. They belonged to his great-grandparents, Jassy and James. He touched the cool stone and thought of the pair. They had endured. They had come here and created a dynasty, and they had endured. They had braved the Indians and remained despite the annihilating attack of 1622. Their heirs had populated a large part of Virginia. And the Carolinas and New York and the eastern states, he thought with some amusement.

  Then his smile faded slightly and he turned around again, leaving the cemetery behind him. He strode back toward the house. Spotswood and Kinsdale were no longer on the porch. He heard their voices coming from the formal dining room. Peter would have seen to it that his guests were fed, he knew.

  He hesitated then strode up the wide, sweeping stairway that seemed to climb to lofty heights from the expanse of the hall.

  At the top of the stairway was the portrait gallery.

  Camerons were always painted. The practice had begun with Jamie and Jassy, and continued to Roc’s mother and father. He passed by his parents’ pictures briefly. They were wonderful portraits. She was beautiful and dark and shyly smiling; he was proud and dignified, and the strange silver color of his eyes had been well captured by the artist. Still, Roc did not pause long. He walked down past his grandparents and great-grandparents. Then he paused, before Jassy Cameron.

  She had been a fighter, so he had heard, and the sizzle of fire was captured in her gaze, while laughter was captured upon her lips. She had been a beautiful woman, stunning, and with fine and delicately chiseled features. Her eyes had been painted so that they seemed to fall upon him. Even as a child, he had often come to the portrait, fascinated by it.

  He glanced at Jamie. Lord Cameron. Dignified, proud, young. Roc owed them something. Camerons peopled the New World and the Old, and yet he was the heir to their legacy.

  Jassy Cameron’s glance seemed to remind him so.

  “All right, milady,” he said softly to the picture, “I have long been a man, and I do realize that three decades is considered a sufficient age. And perhaps my life is haphazard and reckless. But, you see, I’d had in mind to choose the mother of my children myself. This girl could be cross-eyed or quite insane, you know. She could bring in some horrible disease.…”