“Where else would I be? My wife was set to marry another man. I couldn’t stand idly by.”

“You were sentenced to death? Were you not?”

“Aye, I was.”

“How did you escape death’s clutches?”

Jack stroked my arm with long fingers. “Come now, where were we in our reminiscence? I believe I was just about to win your heart—”

•

He held me in his arms on the deck of The Scarlet Rose, the notorious pirate Russian Jack. My fiancé’s body lay at our feet, devoid of any life. And I wasn’t sad.

“Marry me.”

My insides turned to mush and my knees threatened to give way. Jack held me at arm’s length. “Say you’ll marry me, Redella. But I shan’t call you Redella. You’ll be Red. My Red.”

He even knows what I like to be called. I tried to stifle the brewing feelings of attraction and see the man for what he was. A brutal killer. I steeled my jaw. “You’re a murdering savage, Russian Jack. I won’t marry you.”

A thick course of laughter rose from the pirates as they unloaded our goods onto the black-masted ship that materialized in the mist next to us. A Jolly Roger fluttered in the thick, salty air.

Jack paid them no mind.

“You have guts the like of which I’ve never seen. I can’t teach that. But I can teach you the rest.” The ocean stopped lapping as Russian Jack erased the space between us. With one strong hand, he cupped the side of my face. My eyes shut on their own as our lips met.

Like a quilt on a winter’s day, Jack’s kiss brought an immediate warmth to my body against a cold I’d not known was there. My hands were drawn to his muscular chest as we stood together, frozen in that moment. He stroked my cheek with his thumb and sent spasms through my core, something I’d never felt before. Jack broke from our kiss but kept his face close. So close that his breath warmed my cheeks.

“Marry me, Red. Command my fleet as my equal. My partner in every way.” He brushed the tip of my nose with a kiss. “You’ll want for nothing. Together, we’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams.”

My thoughts were a tempest. This morning, I’d had nothing more to look forward to than being touched by an arrogant ass of a man who thought he was entitled to my heart. And my bed.

But this man—this pirate—

He stared at me with those eyes that threatened to look straight through me. Something told me that Russian Jack was at my mercy, just as much as I was at his. And we both knew it. Spasms quaked through my core again and left me aching. Wanting. Craving something I’d never had—something Russian Jack could give.

Dried blood cracked on my cheek and the slash mark, though not too terribly deep, stung. However, it was something else that lit my veins on fire.

An entire new world, never anything I had before considered, unfolded before me. Jack’s words sent my insides aflutter.

Rich beyond our wildest dreams.

Command a pirate fleet as the captain’s equal.

These things alone were enough to entice a debutante to piracy. However, it was the smoldering look behind Jack’s piercing eyes that almost made the decision for me. I nodded.

“Is that a yes?”

The old Redella, who nursed her dying mother and allowed herself to be swept along in life, never making decisions, melted away as I wrapped my arms around his neck and knocked his signature fur hat to the deck in the process. “Aye, it’s a yes.”

His bleached blond hair stuck this way and that and gave him the look of a schoolboy who’d skipped his lessons in favor of playing at the beach. The old Redella was gone, the new Red—the fiancée of a pirate captain, was here to stay.

I buried my fingers deep in those thick yellow waves and a smile that made no sense spread my lips wide. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Russian Jack.”

And I meant it.

After Jack and I climbed aboard The Black Otter, I discovered that I wasn’t sad over Sully. A handful of Jack’s pirates were still aboard The Scarlet Rose, which had just become the newest vessel in Russian Jack’s fleet, as evidenced by the fluttering Jolly Roger that was hoisted in place of the English flag. I glanced at the schooner that had hours before been my prison, destined to carry me to a life of inadequacy and misery, and another new feeling churned in my gut. I felt liberated.

It made no sense, but I didn’t care.

“Here here,” Jack called.

The scurrying, stowing, and general movement stilled to a stop until all eyes were on Jack. None had seemed to notice my boarding with him until this moment.

“We plundered a ripe maiden when we boarded The Scarlet Rose,” he announced. “A crate of Spanish coins, freshly minted. And bolts of golden cloth.”

The pirate crew, most of which had stayed aboard The Black Otter, mumbled a collective, knowing mumble.

Jack nodded. “Yes, we know what that means, don’t we men?”

“Aye aye,” a few men grunted.

“What was your final destination, Red? Let me guess—the islands no doubt?”

“He said we were going to get married in Jamaica,” I whispered, my voice muted.

He looked down at me. “Your pig fiancé was trading the golden cloth for men. Women and children, too.”

“You don’t mean—”

“He had business to conduct on the side, Red,” Jack whispered back, so that only I could hear. “Slaves from the islands to bring back to England. In bondage.”

Jack turned and addressed his crew again. “The Scarlet Rose. No doubt the man who captained her was a headhunter.”

My eyebrows knitted together above my eyes. All the doctors in London had dark-skinned servants bustling about their homes, didn’t they? Doing the cooking, minding the cleaning. Answering the door. Scrubbing everything. Dull eyed, never smiling.

A rogue memory leapt to the forefront of my mind. I’d been searching Sully’s home for him as my mother’s breath grew weak. Her final moments were near and he needed to be there by her side. And by mine, if the words of love and devotion he often whispered to me were true.

I’d peeked into his washroom only to discover Sully, naked in a tub. His back to me. A young female servant, younger than me by a mint, poured a bucket of steaming water over him.

“Too hot, witch,” he barked. His arm shot out from the tub and disappeared in her skirts. His muscles tightened as he grabbed her between the legs. Hard.

She yelped in pain as I eased the door shut, unsure of what I’d just seen. A burning bile rose into my throat as her dark, hopeless eyes met mine through the closing crack of the door.

Jack’s booming voice drew me from my unwelcome reverie. “The headhunter also had a most precious jewel aboard.”

Without warning, he hefted me onto his shoulders. My face ached from the slash, but a sudden grin spread my lips wide despite the pain. “Now this jewel is mine!”

A raucous whoop went up from the crew.