Captive to a Pirate Read online

  CAPTIVE TO A PIRATE

  Lilith T. Bell

  DEDICATION

  To Maggie, for always encouraging me to keep writing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE BLACK PRIDE

  August 24th, 1688

  Isla Tortuga, Hispaniola

  TORTUGA was rich from the bounty of pirates and privateers. Brigid O’Cullane looked toward land as they unloaded their booty. Her father would never share many details on his life as a privateer, but she had deified him far above the pirates she now found herself surrounded by. The Hispaniolan port was renowned as a haven for the worst of pirates and she was grateful that she was keeping watch on the ship for a variety of reasons.

  “Sad you’ll be missing out, Brian?”

  Having used the fake name for weeks, she was finally starting to respond to it automatically, which was good. She’d worried everyone had thought she was slow when she first joined the crew, as she so often didn’t notice when her alias was called out.

  The voice using her alias would have caught her attention regardless, though. His voice was deep, with a muddled accent that was difficult to pin down. His accent was influenced by all parts of the British Isles and a number of ports in the New World as well. Her father had sounded a bit like that, though heavier on Dublin. Her father had said it was a good sailor’s voice, as it showed a man called the entire world his home.

  It was difficult for Brigid to admit there was anything good about Liam Lynch at all.

  She turned toward the man who’d been speaking to her, passing off the crate she had in her hands. Of all aspects of his life at sea, her father had spoken the most about Liam. He’d taken the lad as something of an apprentice back when Liam was orphaned at twelve and the two had sailed together frequently since.

  “A bit, I suppose,” she lied. “I’m happy to watch the ship with Ol’ Paul, though. I like the chance to prove myself.”

  One detail about Liam that Brigid’s father had failed to ever describe was his face, which the young woman found disconcertingly beautiful. His face was unlined beyond a few faint worry lines crossing his forehead, illustrating his youth and health. His lips were full and well shaped, with the upper lip slightly fuller than the bottom. His nose was straight, lacking any hook to its bridge or the tell-tale asymmetry of having been broken in the past. The only real flaw in his face were two thin scars that ran down his left cheek, looking something like old claw marks. His cheekbones were high and sharp, drawing her attention to pale blue eyes that contrasted dramatically with the dark lashes that fringed them.

  The piercing gaze of those eyes seemed to look right down to the core of her and she quickly looked away again, feeling her cheeks warm up. Under the bindings she used to keep her breasts flat, she could feel her nipples hardening as shivers rushed through her body. Desire didn’t seem to care that she hated the man.

  “Eh, you’ve proven yourself well enough already, lad. We’d best watch out or you’ll be stealing my job next.” From the corner of her eye, she could see Liam smirk and give her a wink.

  “Oh, that’s not what I’ll be stealing,” Brigid said, passing on the next crate down the line.

  Liam laughed and once he’d handed off the crate, he gave her a friendly slap on the back. With the wet dock beneath her feet and the unexpected touch, it was enough to make her stumble. One of her boots slipped on the slick wood, throwing her body forward, head first off the dock and toward the sea below.

  Powerful arms wrapped around her instantly. One of Liam’s hands was braced at her chest, the other catching her at the upper thigh. His touch made her heart pound far harder than the prospect of going headfirst into the churning waves. At her thigh his fingers slid upward as he pulled her back toward him, brushing against her clothed sex. Just that incidental touch was like being struck by lightning, making muscles clench and flutter. She was jerked back against his chest and held there for a moment to get steady on her feet. She could feel the fingers at her chest slide against the bindings there, clearly having noticed them. His middle finger slid over her nipple and she pulled away from him frantically, scrambling backward from the edge of the dock.

  Their eyes met. One of his brows was raised and he was giving her a shrewd look. He’d felt the bindings and had certainly been close enough to guess at a lack of manhood between her legs. Was he paying enough attention to have realized and seen through her disguise?

  “That’s the last of the cargo. I’d best get back there before Ol’ Paul drinks himself into a stupor,” she said in a rush.

  Liam said nothing. Brigid hurried up the gangplank, trying to ignore both the rush of abject fear and confused arousal. Putting off her plan any longer would be too much of a risk. She had to find out what had happened to the map and flee the ship before the night was out.

  Once she was on deck, she leaned backward against the railing for a moment and took a few deep breaths. She counted off the seconds in her head before she dared to look over her shoulder to see that Liam had left. Her eyes moved toward the port city and she allowed herself to shudder. If all went according to plan, she’d be sleeping in Tortuga that night, before finding a ship willing to take a passenger and making her way toward New Providence. Everything she’d heard about Tortuga had chilled her blood, though the majority of what she was told had been from gleefully bragging pirates—her crew-mates. Or at least that was who they would be until the end of the night.

  Reaching up, she took off her hat for a moment, then slid the eye-patch she’d hidden under her bandana down and over her eye. Her father had always shown an unbelievable gift for seeing in the dark. Several years before he died, he’d shown her the trick to block out light to one eye so that it would be attuned to darkness. Later, she’d flip it back up again below deck and be able to see. She still didn’t have her father’s gift for seeing in the dark, but it was better than being blinded by the blazing setting sun over Hispaniola.

  “Paul, I have something better for you than the watered down grog we’ve been drinking,” she called out to the older man.

  Despite the name of Ol’ Paul, he was only in his late thirties. Prematurely grayed hair and a grizzled look from a lifetime of heavy drinking had granted him the name. He walked over toward Brigid, head cocked with interest. “What’s that, lad?”

  She offered over the small bottle of rum she’d stolen at their last port and she saw his bloodshot eyes brighten up with pleasure. Ol’ Paul took the bottle happily and used his knife to pry out the cork. “Here, lad. Have the first drink.”

  “Ah, you’re a good man.” Brigid grinned as she took the bottle, then tipped it back at her lips. Her tongue blocked the flow of the rum as she mimed taking a few swallows, then handed it back.

  The opium that she’d added to the rum made her tongue tingle and as soon as Ol’ Paul wasn’t looking, she turned her face toward the railing and spat over it. Finding something she was sure would knock out whoever she had watch with had been difficult, but she was sure the opium would pay off. She would never indulge in the oriental drug, but her father had told her about its effects on men. He’d told her many useful things.

  Judge a ship by its rats. It was a strange bit of advice that Brigid’s father had given her, but she had taken it to heart even so. The most valuable part of it was that she knew he had given the same wisdom to Liam.

  Not wasting a moment in mourning, as soon as word came of her father’s death without even a coin tossed their direction, she had gone to the docks and watched. Every ship had rats, but the one with fat, sleek rats that showed neither fear nor aggression was the ship Liam would be on. That very day she chopped off her hair and put on her father’s clothes and presented herself to the captain as a youth in search of work. />
  She kept glancing toward the shore as Ol’ Paul drank and she pretended to. The combination of opium and alcohol had the man blind to any nervousness she was displaying. Soon enough, he’d settled down to sit on the starboard side of the desk and seemed to have forgotten about sharing the rum at all. Eventually, the sound of snoring drew her attention back to him. He was sprawled out on the deck with his head propped up against the side of the ship, the bottle hugged to his chest like a lover.

  Another cautious glance toward shore and then she grabbed a lantern to head below.

  Her boots were nearly silent as she made her way back to the navigator’s cabin. Pirate ships were gutted of most cabins in order to lighten their weight. It increased speed and meant they could carry more cannons. Not all of the quarters were gutted, though. There was space for the captain, for the first mate, and for the navigator. Liam.

  The door was locked, but that had never stopped her. Brigid dropped to her knees and flipped up the eye-patch. She set her lantern beside her before pulling out her lock-picking kit from a pocket in her breeches, a cherished gift from her father. Every second that passed made her more agitated and concerned about being caught, but she sighed in relief when the last tumbler slid into place. A quiet creak made her wince when she pushed the door open, then she slipped inside.

  The room was small, just wide enough for a single cot and a compact desk to sit side by side. The desk had a chair before it and the bed had a chest at its foot. Beyond that, the room was empty. As spartan as it was, the cabin was absolute luxury compared to what the rest of the crew had. She went to the desk first and began to sift through the maps and papers and books. Some were stacked up neatly or rolled together on the desktop, while the rest had been tucked into the two small drawers the desk sported. Nothing with her father’s handwriting caught her eye, but she did find what looked like an old logbook and flipped it open to leaf through to the date when her father died, hoping there might be some hint as to what happened.

  Liam’s handwriting was surprisingly neat and fine. The lettering was small in order to fit a great deal of information on every line, but it never looked cramped. He had the perfect navigator’s hand. There was no entry for the day she had been told her father had died, but two days later it began again. The precision of his lettering was off, that tightly controlled hand now shaky.

  Storm heavily damaged ship port-side. Two leagues north of Eleuthera. Donovan swept overboard. Body found crushed against coral. His effects are chest and Bible. Will send word to his family. May God keep him close to His heart.

  Several different feelings warred within Brigid as she gazed on that simply written eulogy. Though she had never met Liam before joining the crew of the Black Pride, weeks in his company and years of hearing her father speak of him had formed an impression of a man who didn’t show his intimate emotions lightly. Seven short sentences by a trembling hand told a world of grief. She wanted to have empathy for him, for the loss they both shared, and yet the notation that her father’s chest and Bible had survived the storm without being returned to her family enraged her. It was what she had assumed and why she had come after Liam in the first place, but being proven right didn’t soothe her anger.

  She set the journal back into the drawer she had taken it from, then slid the drawer closed before turning her attention to the chest. With the desk proven fruitless, it was the next logical place to look for her father’s things. She settled her lantern next to the chest and knelt to check the lock.

  The cabin door flew open, slamming against the wall behind it. Brigid’s head jerked up and her hand automatically went to grab the butt of the flintlock pistol at her belt.

  Liam stood in the doorway, his hands braced on other side as he used his body to block the only exit from the small cabin. He wasn’t the largest man on the ship, but a body hardened by constant labor would make him a formidable foe. Unlike most men of fashion, his dark hair was short, his beard kept shaved down to stubble. His clothes were simple, relatively utilitarian compared to the flamboyancy of many other successful pirates. The only bit of jewelry he wore was an intricate gold ring on a chain around his neck.

  Under the best of circumstances, meeting his eyes would leave her flustered and uncomfortable. It was far from the best of circumstances as his glacial blue eyes burned into hers with fury.

  “What do you think you’re doing here, boyo?” he demanded.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TRAPPED

  THE island of Tortuga had few single women beyond whores. For most buccaneers, that was women enough and a good way to waste what gold they had collected. A few had planned ahead and kept a wife in almost every port, so they always had a clean bed and woman to lay down with when they arrived. Liam desired neither a prostitute nor a neglected wife. Women who wanted a lover simply for pleasure rather than an ulterior motive were the only ones he had an interest in, which often meant places of revelry to other men were ones of celibacy to him.

  When the pretty little thing who had been sitting in his lap at the inn had made it clear she had more interest in his coins than his kisses, he’d had his fill of Tortuga. He had it in mind to send the lad Brian off to enjoy himself, since the boy was guarding the ship and no doubt pining for a bit of fun.

  Finding Ol’ Paul passed out on deck and no sign of Brian had raised an instant alarm, particularly after the strange way the lad had been acting earlier in the afternoon. It was less instinct and more selfishness that had driven him to check his own quarters before looking anywhere else below deck.

  Stealing was considered a serious offense on a ship and the lad was new, meaning there would be less mercy for him. Liam watched Brian rise to his feet, looking pale and frightened. The boy looked no older than twelve and his voice had yet to change, but he was quite tall for a lad, only an inch or two shorter than Liam himself. Brian kept himself covered in great baggy clothes and wasn’t particularly thin, but Liam was sure he had far more muscle than the boy. There was no doubt that he could beat sense into the lad. A friendly beating would be kinder than the whipping he could expect from official disciplinary action.

  “Well?” Liam asked, when the youth failed to answer his question. “Am I going to have to box it out of you?”

  The boy raised his chin defiantly, though he looked no less terrified. “You have something of mine and I came to get it.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes at the accusation. “Unlike you, I don’t steal from shipmates.”

  The lad snorted and shook his head. “Only the dead ones.”

  There was only so far Liam’s patience went and Brian had used every last bit of it. The older man shook his head as he stepped further into the cabin. “That’s it, lad. I’m taking you to the brig and informing the captain of this.”

  Brian took a step back to avoid him, the terror in his eyes now turning to panic. “Donovan O’Cullane was my father and you took his bloody map!”

  The bizarre statement made Liam freeze in his tracks. How would anyone else know about the map? Obviously, the lad was lying about being Donovan’s, unless the man had left some bastards around the Caribbean that he hadn’t told anyone about. It was possible, but Liam couldn’t imagine that the man who had lectured him on why they could never abandon a child would have fathered a secret son. The cultural imperative was too deeply ingrained in their kind. It happened, yes, but it was a shameful thing to do.

  The lad took advantage of his shock to attempt darting past him. As the boy ducked beneath one of Liam’s arms, the navigator spun and grabbed for him, catching a handful at the back of the boy’s shirt. There was something else beneath it as well that felt almost like bandages. He’d felt that earlier and wondered if the boy had some injury he’d been hiding. No matter; for the moment all Liam cared about was keeping a good grip on the lad to drag him back in. He pulled the boy toward him as Brian struggled. There was the sound of cloth ripping and Liam felt whatever the lad wore under his shirt give way. The well worn shirt tore downwa
rd from the laced v-neck collar as well as the boy continued to fight. In his thrashings, Liam saw something that made no sense whatsoever.

  Once he managed to catch an arm, he slammed his captive’s back against the wall, then looked down to verify what he had seen. Breasts. Full, ripe, painfully tempting breasts. They had been bound by the cloth that he grabbed through the shirt and were now unrestrained. Exposed as well, with the shirt torn open. He drew his eyes up slowly to the girl’s face. Of course. How stupid had he been to think for a moment that Brian was a boy?

  He brought his free hand up to catch the eye-patch, the bandana and the hat over it that “Brian” had used in covering up her head. A red-haired lad trying to protect his fair skin from the sun had made sense, but that wasn’t it at all. Corkscrew copper curls fell almost to the young woman’s shoulders, framing a pale, frightened face. She was quite tall for a woman, but O’Cullane had been tall as well. She was strong, too, with the fight she’d put up.

  “Aye, I didn’t think Donny had any surviving sons,” Liam said.

  He brought a hand up to touch the girl’s cheek as he considered the resemblance, then felt the cold metal of a pistol’s barrel against the underside of his chin.

  “Give me the map and let me go.” The girl’s voice was deadly serious enough to put the fear of God in a man. The fright he’d seen in her eyes was gone now, replaced with the steely determination he’d seen in Donny’s face a thousand times.

  Whatever his feelings were on Donny and what was possibly his daughter, there was no way in hell Liam would accept such a threat. He swept the pistol from the girl’s hand, then caught her wrist to pin it to the wall above her head. At the same time, he felt her wrenching her other arm free, her hand grasping at the dagger he kept in his belt. Again, he caught that wrist to pin it, then grit his teeth with a growl as she started kicking him in the shins with her boots.