A | B | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

---

PART I

---

MARCH, 1780
ATLANTIC OCEAN, TRADE ROUTE

ELLIOTT’S SMILE DEEPENED when Fury blushed, arose abruptly, strode across the cabin, and threw the door open.

“GEORGE!” she bellowed. “FOOD!”

He watched as she went about the cabin tidying things that were already tidy until they had achieved some perfection only she could discern. Her hair swirled about her hips with every move she made. Instead of the pink braid that had originally caught his eye, when loose and in the harsh spring dawn, her hair was a lovely Venetian blonde.

Aye, he should be incensed that she had ferreted him out so quickly, but he should have expected that. She was no fool. Any experienced sailor and sharp observer could draw the conclusions she had were they afforded the opportunity to observe, which was precisely why he had never let anyone else that close.

Yet now he knew that the minute he told her of his betrothal to a twenty-three-year-old American girl he had never met, whose name he could not remember, his time with Fury would be over—irrevocably.

He wasn’t surprised, but he was rather seasick at the lost opportunity. The only thing he could do was enjoy this time with her in order to have one good memory to take with him into his interminable future, the one in which he was forever trapped, bound by duty.

She returned to him, scooping her cat up in her arms along the way, and once again sat on the edge of the bunk, her arse against his hip. He drew a finger down her arm, and then up again, caressing her until she shivered and sighed with obvious delight.

“What did you study at Oxford?”

“Law,” he answered before he realized what she had said. “Hell’s bells,” he muttered when she began to laugh. “How did you know that?”

“I can hear it in your voice.” He stared at her and her smile deepened. “’Tis not obvious, so do not fret that someone else will find you out. I have an ear for accents and languages.”

Languages. That was a safe topic. “Oh? Your accent is barely American.”

“’Twould be no wonder,” she said matter-of-factly. “I speak six languages more or less fluently and have spent most of my life on the deck of a ship with men who spoke ten more and every variety of English I know of.”

“I confess I am fluent only in English and French. Whatever Latin I learned has long since vanished.”

“I know no Latin, so you have my advantage there.”

“And the other four?”

“Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. French is my second language, as ’tis the lingua franca of the Barbary Coast. Portuguese was my most difficult language to acquire.”

“Ah, yes,” he drawled. “You attended University of Coimbra, so your Portuguese is academic, no? And you studied astronomy and mathematics with Doctor Covarrubias.”

She reached out and tweaked his nose. “That is no great secret, Sir.”

“Nor that he was lover number one.”

Her palm landed softly on his chest and she leaned forward, her smile mischievous. “He still is,” she whispered. Elliott wished he’d killed the bastard in Virginia, but she shrugged when his eyes narrowed. “Do you care to tell me your name, or for me to examine your inability to wed for love, we may then discuss Rafael. Men who marry for duty must choose an appropriate woman and by anyone’s defining, I am as far from appropriate as the sun.”

She had him there—and he despised the fact of it. He struggled to find another topic. “I heard a rumor you are a musician.”

“I sing,” she answered airily. “Soprano. Also not a secret.”

“Well! That is certainly something remarkable.”

Her jaw tightened suddenly and Elliott realized he had stumbled into a sore point.

“I am degreed, aye,” she muttered, “but I could never become a soloist as I cannot maintain a satisfactory vibrato. I never rose above the chorus.”

“Neither could I,” he said wryly.

Fury’s brows drew close. “You sing?”

He chuckled. “Not a note. Aye, I studied law, but I am not suited to it. The other men in my family are extraordinarily talented at it, but I … ” His pride in Niall and Sandy tempted him to prattle on about how talented they were, but he resisted. Indeed, I owe them my life would invite yet more speculation by this woman who, in twenty-four hours, had deduced far too much of the truth of him. “I’m not terribly suited to academics in any case. But in reality, it did not matter, as I was bound for the sea. Thus, I am degreed—barely—but I was never called to the bar. I dare say I could not maintain a vibrato or rise above the chorus, either.”

She laughed and leaned down to kiss him. “And so here we are, doing what we were born to do.”

“No,” Elliott said thoughtfully. At her confused expression, he said, “I despise sailing.” For some reason, he felt particularly satisfied at her shocked expression, and grinned wryly. “’Tis a trap to be talented at a thing one hates.” Fury’s mouth opened and closed in her shock, seeming to be searching for words. “How do you come to your assumptions of me?” he asked to forestall any more questions.

She blinked, then seemed to recover herself enough to slide a saucy glance at him. “Every word you say. Every choice you make. Every detail of your ship and crew. You are no pirate, Sir.”

“The Royal Navy would dispute that.”

“Is there anyone left of your battles with them to dispute it?”

“There were none until, of necessity, I was forced to leave a quarter of a British fleet floating in the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, very much alive. I was an unprovable myth, but now both Rathbone and Bancroft have seen that I am not.”

She laughed and scratched her happy cat’s chin. “Otherwise cheerful men who expend their rage upon those who built it have no need to brood elsewhere, do they?”

Elliott opened his mouth to give her a flippant response, but found himself saying, “I am not angry anymore.”

“Oh? Then why … ?”

“Now ’tis only a matter of opportunity.” Her brow wrinkled in question. “Fury, I’m on my way home. To stay. I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I will take any opportunities that present themselves on my way, but once I put into port, I am finished with this life.”

“What will you do then? Since you have no taste for the law, either?”

He paused, reached out to scratch Dindi’s cheek, then murmured, “My duty.”

“What would you rather do?” she asked slowly. “Or have you never thought of it?”

Elliott frowned. “At times,” he said slowly, “’tis the only thing I can think of, but I durst not speak of it. As I have my duty, what I want can never happen. Do I speak of it, I grow angry at what cannot be and truly, I do not like being angry. Nor do I relish wallowing in my circumstance. And that is enough of that. I will indulge your curiosity no more.”

She cast him a moue of amused dismay.

“Can you spare me some of your cats?” Elliott asked abruptly.

She blinked with surprise. “Certainly. You have none?”

“Cats. Water. It did not occur to me.”

“I forget ’tis not common practice.” Just then there was a timid knock at the door. “Come.”

It opened slowly, and a small face peered around it. “Captain?”

“It is safe to enter now, George,” Fury said wryly.

She did, carrying an enormous tray filled with so much food she should not have been able to carry it. But she set it down on the captain’s table with the strength and gracefulness of a girl accustomed to hard labor.

“Well, look who’s back,” Elliott drawled.

The girl flushed to the roots of her hair and looked resolutely down at the food she was arranging. She was average in size, possibly fifteen or sixteen years old, with a tight brunette braid. Her face was soft and plump and her hands red and chapped. She still wobbled a bit, though the deck was not moving.

“Good morning, girl. George, is it?”

“Goo— Goo— Good morning … ?”

“Cap’n Judas.”

“Oh. Um. Ca— Captain Ju— Judas.” She gulped. “Sir.”

“Did no one on watch last night tell you your captain acquired a bed partner?”

“N— N— No.”

“Shame on them.”

She peeked at Fury, clearly confused by the fact that her captain was sitting calmly on the bed, one leg crossed over the other, leaning forward with her elbows crossed over her knees and Dindi tucked against her body.

“Ca— Captain Jack? Are you— Are you well?”

Fury laughed and Elliott was pleasantly surprised at the girl’s pluck in daring to ask. “Good God, yes. In fact, I’m positively boneless.”

“Boneless, you say, Fury?” Elliott queried innocently. “Allow me to remedy that.”

The girl whimpered and looked away from him, wringing her hands.

“Never mind him, George. He plays the ogre well enough, but in truth, he is harmless.”

“Harmless?” Elliott protested, affronted.

Fury continued as if she hadn’t heard. “You and Kit are relieved of your regular duties for the day.”

That confused the girl further. “Captain?”

“We are on anchor watch, which means almost none. We’re becalmed. We aren’t going anywhere until the wind picks up and thus, no one else is, either. We are relatively safe at the moment, and I have a wish to spend time with my new friend.”

Elliott chuckled when she flushed again.

“I don’t … I don’t understand, Captain.”

“It means we—all of us, both ships—will be making merry until Mother Nature sees fit to blow us upon our journey.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Oh,” she said wonderingly.

“Since we do not know when that will happen, enjoy yourself, because then it will be work time once again. Oh, aye, wait. I do have a task for you. Go to the hold and gather some dozen or so young cats, then take them to the Silver Shilling and hand them over to its leftenant.”

“Uh … how will I get there, Captain? It’s leagues away.”

Elliott snorted “A bare hundred yards. Fewer than that if it’s being towed at this very moment.”

“I’m sure you can find a solution to the problem,” Fury purred.

“Ask my leftenant for a set of clothing for your return trip,” Elliott added.

“Aye, Sir,” she whispered, unable to look anywhere but at the floor.

“Dismissed.”

The girl was all too eager to leave the cabin, but took care to close the door softly behind her.

“She is new?”

“Aye. She is a good girl and a hard worker, but needs a firm hand by someone who respects her will and trusts her intelligence.”

“She’s strong as any able seaman, but has not been aboard long enough to lose her timidity or catch her legs, much less get that strong.”

Fury raised a finger and said, “Ah, but she has been aboard long enough to lose her virginity.”

“Oh, aye? She acts as if she had never seen a man in the altogether.”

“Five days. I believe it took Kit two of them to lure her to his bunk. What she saw you doing would frighten grown women, and she is but a girl—albeit a complete rapscallion, or I miss my guess—on the edge of womanhood who has been suddenly taken by pirates. She is under the command of a woman more powerful than any man she has ever met, but whom she does not yet trust. Then she sees this woman—who is her only protection at the moment—being violently plowed by an enormous savage with blood on his arse, who barks at her without breaking stride. How should she comport herself in his presence after the fact, especially if she has no way to know she is not next on his menu?”

Elliott had to concede the point once he thought about how it must have looked to a young girl.

“Come, eat. You have stirred in me a prodigious appetite, Sir, and I enjoy dining with pleasurable company.”

Elliott refrained from the ribald comment he could have made and stood to join her at table after pulling on his almost-dry breeches. He looked down as she spread out their repast: two great covered bowls, two pitchers of something else, a large pot of coffee, six oranges, a loaf of bread, and a plate of butter.

He was very impressed.

“Bread?” he asked, even as she lifted one of the lids and sniffed at what appeared to be a thick stew, closing her eyes in ecstasy. “How do you come by bread in the middle of the Atlantic, Madam, when even I am reduced to hardtack?”

He reached across the table to set out the plates, utensils, and tankards whilst she stirred the stew.

“I feed and pay my men well,” she said and took her seat, then poured what looked like lemonade from the pitcher into her tankard, then offered him some.

“No tea?”

She grinned. “Well, are you not the proper Englishman! No. Coffee, lemonade, grog, beer, or rum.”

He grunted and reached for the coffee pot and cup to pour for himself.

“This is part of why I can keep a crew happy and loyal. Look at this. Would you leave my employ if you knew this was on the regular Thursday breakfast menu and that you were also earning a regular wage?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just so. I have been diligent in hiring men and women who can cook and train others to cook just as well. I cannot abide the usual ship’s fare and I cannot fathom how any man can work well without collapsing of hunger subsisting upon it. I know I would. In fact, I have.”

Elliott said nothing, but bent his head to taste the stew while he thought about how much space it would take to keep provisions enough to feed five hundred men such a delicious concoction as this once a week for eight weeks—never mind the rest of the week.

“I’ve been at sea my entire adulthood,” he said gruffly. “I have not thought of having better food at sea as a constant.”

“His Royal Highness is not known for the tender care of his men,” she said dryly. He snorted. “Yet you’re the captain. Surely you’ve eaten far better all these years?”

He slid a wry grin at her. “As you noted, I’m rather much larger than any two of my men put together and so I eat more, aye, but better? A bit, I suppose.” He took a long draught of the surprisingly delicious coffee. “Dining modestly goes far toward cultivating goodwill.”

“Modest? What is that?”

Elliott spewed coffee.

A knock sounded whilst Elliott was still laughing and coughing at once. Fury smirked and called permission to enter. An older woman, dressed in breeches and loose shirt, her pure white hair braided and pinned in a crown atop her head, opened the door and sauntered in with an enormous ledger tucked under her arm.

He would have to accustom himself to seeing women aboard, for a certainty.

“Good morning, Mama.”

Elliott choked again. “Mama?!”

“Good morning, see … Jack,” the woman returned, bending to kiss the cheek Fury offered her before setting the ledger aside, taking a seat at the table, and helping herself to breakfast.

Elliott gaped at her.

“Good morning, Captain Judas,” she said, a hint of a smile curling her lip. “I trust you slept well.”

“Good God, this is unpleasant,” he whispered.

Fury laughed in sheer delight, exchanging amused glances with her mother, who bore so little resemblance to her daughter, he was tempted to ask if Fury was from the woman’s body.

“Would it soothe your sense of propriety if I introduced her as Officer Mary?” Fury asked sweetly. “Chief Purser. She breaks her fast with me most mornings.”

Elliott did not think how he could continue to be taken broadside by this woman, but she seemed to be able to blow cannonballs through his mind at a rapid pace.

“Whilst Captain Judas is recovering his wits,” Officer Mary said, “I want to discuss the Lamplight.”

“The Lamplight is the merchant I took last week, from whence George came.”

Elliott simply nodded. It was all he could manage.

“Did you inform Captain Bull of your plans for it?” Officer Mary asked. Her accent, though basically American, was nearly as garbled as Fury’s.

“Nay. ’Twas a discussion I had no time for at the moment.”

“Oh, good.” Fury’s mother shifted and opened the ledger to a page Elliott now saw she had marked. “I suggest you ask him if he would like to lease it from you.”

“Mama, no. He has served me well and I would reward him. He is a gifted leader and a good friend and I have no need of the ship or the funds. Why should I not give it to him?”

“Because it is your ship.”

“It is my ship to do with what I please,” Fury corrected somewhat impatiently, “and it pleases me to give it to Bridge.”

“You would give away everything you own if I allowed it.”

She shrugged. “My needs are not that great.”

“Your modistes in London, Rotterdam, and Paris would disagree with that. I see the invoices.”

That jerked Elliott right out of his shock. “Three modistes?” he asked with a grin.

Fury sniffed, but her mother slid her a disgusted glance. “If that man hadn’t spoilt her rotten and made her so bloody vain, she might be content with one.”

“Mother!”

That Man could be a lover or a father, but now was not the time to pursue it. “She has reason to be vain,” Elliott murmured, raking Fury with a lascivious glance.

Fury flushed and looked away. “You need not flatter me unduly to pry my thighs open, Judas,” she muttered. “I am quite aware of my deficiencies, even without my scars.”

“Unduly?” Elliott asked, staring at her, suddenly incredulous. “Madam, we discussed this last night. Know this: Had I not thought you beautiful, I would never have kissed you in the first place.”

Her head snapped to him, her mouth open. “Look at her!” she said, pointing to her mother. “Do I look like her? No. I look like my sire, who is not precisely easy on the eyes.”

Her mother drew herself up with great umbrage. “Oh! That is not true!”

Fury glared at her. “Mama, do not begin to sing his praises to me now.”

Elliott smothered his grin and continued with his meal while they continued to bicker. Until Fury had pointed it out, he had not noticed anything particularly special about her mother, but now that she had, Elliott had to admit she was, indeed, a beautiful woman.

The argument mounted. It reminded him of his sisters and his mother, who regularly clashed and, while he could respect Fury as a wise leader and accomplished navigator, he relished the fact that she was also so … womanly.

A beloved pet.

Three modistes.

Bruised female vanity.

A friendship with a mother that allowed for such this type of bickering.

He could have been at the breakfast table at home for all the differences between his family and this pair, and he was enjoying every second of it.

Thus he learned that Fury was of Mary’s body and that Fury’s parents were not on speaking terms. In fact, Mary was quite displeased with her husband. It was obvious to Elliott that Fury wanted them to reconcile, but Mary felt there were too many years between them to do so.

“How many years?” Elliott asked abruptly around his bite. They both started and turned to stare at him as if he had just appeared. “Forgot I was here, did you? How many years?”

“Ah … ” Mary blinked. “Twenty.”

“What did he do?”

“He failed to divine her circumstance,” Fury drawled with a sidelong glance at her mother. But then she turned to Elliott. “The inciting, ah, incident was horrid.” Fury shuddered. “Mama had made a grave mistake, it is true, but the other persons involved compounded that by orders of magnitude. Because of their unwillingness to put their pride aside, the last twenty years have not been kind to her. In my father’s defense,” she said pointedly (clearly, this was a well-trod subject between them), “he made a reasonable assumption that by staying away, he was protecting both me and her. But since he did not return in all these years to find out if this assumption was true or to reunite her with me, she is angry and unwilling to listen to him.”

Elliott took another bite and thought. There were not enough details for him to assume anything, but he was quite curious about the relationship as it stood now. He studied Mary from under his brow, noting that her eyes were the same color as Fury’s.

“How did the two of you come to be reunited, then?”

“I went to her after I took this ship and asked her if she wished to put out to sea with me. But if I had known she would harry me thus, I wouldn’t have.”

Mary harrumphed.

Elliott swallowed his bite, took a drink, and pointed his spoon at Fury’s mother, as he would his own. “You would not be this angry still if you had no feeling for him.”

Mary stared at Elliott as if he were a serpent bent on hypnotizing her.

“She loves him,” Fury muttered. “He loves her. But because of all of the other parties involved, a reconciliation is far more complicated than it would be for anyone else.”

“And where is he right now?”

“Oh, likely closing in on Morocco, where she would be, too, if she hadn’t fought him tooth and nail in Oranjestad.”

Elliott gaped at Fury. “Dunham is your father?”

“Could you not tell?” She cast him a befuddled look. “Everyone can tell.”

“I had no chance to look at the man, Madam, as you were trying to kill me.”

She grinned.

“I do not comprehend. If you want them together, why did you not allow him to take her?”

Fury looked down at her stew. “After our brawl, I fell ill,” she muttered, “and thus was unable to give the order or even negotiate a truce. She did not want to go, so in my absence, my crew backed her. Given that my leftenant does not care for Papa anyroad, ’twas not a difficult decision for him to make. Given that we are well known and liked in Oranjestad and Papa but a stranger, it was also not difficult to convince him he would be starting a battle he would regret did he attempt to take my ship.”

Elliott nodded. It was the correct protocol, but he now had a thousand more questions. He asked the most important one.

“Was your affliction a consequence of our misunderstanding?”

“Nay. ’Twas a … womanly malady … I must occasionally endure.”

Ah, yes. He had observed that his mother and older sister had taken to their beds three or four days of every month in agonizing pain. He had no wish to probe further.

“In point of fact,” Mary snapped, clearly having recovered herself, “one reason I declined to go with him was because of what he did to Jack. I expect you’ve seen her scars.”

“Oh, Mama, no,” Fury groaned. “Not that again.”

Elliott looked at Fury. “Your flogging?”

“Aye. I have explained this to her countless times. She will not take my word as a commander that he was merciful.”

“Captain,” Mary said briskly. “You are qualified to say if ’twas a merciful punishment or not.”

“What did you do, Madam?”

Fury looked away. “I was twenty,” she said low. “I was at university for over five years. Rafael doted on me.” Jealousy surged through Elliott. “He gave me everything I wanted and more. In short, he turned me into a spoilt bitch.”

Ah. He of the Japanese swords and wraps was That Man. Elliott caught Mary’s snarl out of the corner of his eye. And Fury’s mother despised him. Excellent. Even better would be if Dunham shared his wife’s opinion.

Yet there was nothing Elliott could do but enjoy this time with Fury, as her parents’ opinions of Covarrubias made no difference to his circumstance.

“When I returned to the Iron Maiden after I graduated, Papa made me his third leftenant and navigator,” Fury was saying. “After about a year, he gave me an order I refused to carry out.”

“There is more to it than that,” Elliott rumbled, reaching out to slide his hand down her silk-covered ribs. “This does not happen for merely refusing a direct order.”

“I told him he would have to kill me first and see to the task himself if he wanted it done,” she said lightly. “Then I spit in his face. In front of the entire crew.”

Elliott gaped at her, horrified. “Good God, Madam!”

“Yes!” Mary was triumphant. “I knew you would see it my way, Captain!”

At that, Elliott leveled Mary a hard look. “There is an order to things aboard a ship, Ma’am. She challenged him to kill her, but instead of doing so, he left her with a body covered in scars and no other damage. Aye, he was more merciful than I would have been.”

“She is our daughter,” Mary hissed, banging her fist on the table. “His daughter. Would you do that to your daughter?”

“I wouldn’t raise my daughter on a pirate ship amongst men,” Elliott shot back. Mary blanched. “She knew the rules, the consequences for infractions, and likely having—” He looked at Fury. “Third leftenant? You administered the floggings, then?”

“Aye,” she replied tightly. “I knew what would happen. I … expected to die for it.”

“Why, Madam?” Elliott demanded. “What order could have been that repugnant to you?”

She glared at him, then at her mother. “I had my reasons and those are my own. ’Tis trivial enough on the surface until one speaks to principle, but ’tis naught I would expect either of you to understand. He certainly never has.”

“I assume you carried it out eventually.”

Fury’s mouth twisted in an ugly sneer. “Absolutely not. I’d defy him again. And for the same reason.”

If Mary had not been in the room, Elliott would have swept Fury out of that chair and right back into bed. God’s blood, but she lit his mind and body like a match put to the bung of a powder keg.

“Ah, see … Jack,” Officer Mary said carefully. “You understand ’tis a mother’s love for her child that spurs me to this ire, do you not?”

“Aye, I understand it. But now you have another opinion on the subject that aligns with mine. And Papa’s. If I can accept it, mayhap you should also?”

Mary’s mouth tightened and she looked to the larboard bulkhead, where Fury kept her log books. Elliott saw the telltale glint of tears in her eyes.

“She does not understand their value to me,” Fury muttered, refusing to look at him. A flush stained her cheekbones. She was embarrassed by this confrontation, though clearly not by what she had done.

“When you go bare-breasted in battle?”

Officer Mary tipped her ear toward the conversation.

“Aye. If you knew nothing else of me, met me in battle and saw my scars, would you see a woman? Would you see my breasts?”

“Nay. I would see a commander not easily vanquished or killed.”

Fury’s eyelids fluttered up until she was staring into his eyes. A corner of her mouth began to tuck up in a pleased smile. “Just so,” she whispered.

The door opening without a knock halted the conversation, to Elliott’s chagrin, and Fury’s first mate spoke with a heavy Irish brogue. “The Silver Shillin’s been towed close enough in now to consider grappling.” He looked at Elliott. “Yer leftenant’s askin’ do ye permit it. Seein’ as how our new girl’s been charged with fetchin’ an’ carryin’ ’twixt us, we thought it likely we’d be goin’ back an’ forth anyroad.”

“For my part, ’tis a fine idea,” Elliott said, looking at his lover. “Fury?”

Her eyes narrowed at him and she sat up, poking a finger in his face. “How do I know you will not steal something else I value, my handsome pirate captain?”

“You’ve caught me out,” he said, gently grasping that finger to press a kiss to it. “I have designs on your purser and your cooks.”

Fury gestured toward her mother. “You may have my purser with my blessing, but not my cooks. I would kill you for that.”

Mary laughed in spite of her upset.

Fury turned back to her lieutenant. “Make it so. And Smitty—” she added when he was retreating, “open the casks and bid everyone make merry.” She cast a come-hither glance at Elliott and murmured, “Because I certainly intend to.”

---

If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.

Pirates!