Excerpt and Reviews Seduced by the Pirate

EXCERPT

we pray, hard.”

Standing on the tilting, rain-washed bridge, Jack stared with grim concentration, his knuckles white as he fought to hold onto the wheel to guide his ship away from land until the storm blew out. Ahead, jagged rocks erupted, lashed by a swirling sea of foam, the ship drawn irresistibly toward them.

The helm swung wildly as the bosun shouted an order to reef their sails.

The ship lurched on, but a grinding sound rent the air as the keel struck submerged rocks.

“Sounds like the hull’s been breached,” Pete shouted.

“When the storm’s abated, send Benjamin down to check.”

Sometime later, the early morning was sparkling and clear. The storm, while savage in intensity, had suddenly blown out to sea during the night.

The able-bodied of his crew scurried around the ship.

Benjamin emerged from the hold. “Looks bad, Cap’n. I’ll mend it as best I can with sailcloth and tar.”

Jack ordered them to head for land.

“Boom about!” cried his sail master.

Five hours later, leaden with fatigue, Jack scanned the waters as they limped along. They were hundreds of nautical miles off course. He pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. Was it possible they’d come out of this? His thoughts went to his sick men below. He left the poop deck and made for his cabin to consult the charts again. He was hunched over them at his table when the cry came from Jimmy in the lookout. “Land ahoy!”

Jack climbed quickly to the poop deck and took out his spyglass.

As they sailed closer to the African coast, a small bay appeared in Jack’s spyglass, and within it, a long arc of golden sand rimmed by dense jungle. A few miles into the interior, an escarpment rose above the trees, a waterfall tumbling down in a shower of spray. Not far from it, smoke spiraled into the air.

“I know of no settlement here,” Pete observed when he looked through the glass. “That’s miles farther up the coast.”

“Best we don’t chance our luck by trying to reach it,” Jack said.

Ahead, waves broke in a froth of foam over a reef. Pete looked doubtful. “Can we get the ship safely through?”

Jack eyed a narrow channel of deep water. They had to. And his shallow-hulled brigantine was perfect for the task. “We’ll drop anchor and undertake repairs in that sheltered bay. There’ll be food and fresh water. Let’s hope the natives are friendly.”

Pete gave a gloomy shake of his head. “This is known to be voudon country.”

“Muskets beat a voudon spell every time.”

Holding his breath, Jack took the wheel and guided his ship through the channel. Pete nodded approvingly as they reached the quiet bay and dropped anchor. A rivulet disappeared into the lush foliage at the far end of the beach.

The ship rocked gently. The sunlit, crystal-clear water lapped gently at the hull. A school of fish darted beneath the surface.

“Get Benjamin to check whether the repair is holding. He might need to shore it up again. Let’s hope that holds until we get back to base.” If they did.

They were undermanned, and with Cordova in the vicinity, their problems seemed insurmountable.

“We’re out of salted beef. I’m sending the men to catch fish and hunt up some fresh meat,” Pete said.

Jack leaned over the rail beside his lieutenant. “We’ll make for that waterfall. It’s possible we can travel a fair distance by canoe along that stream, before we have to hack our way through. Leave someone to guard the sick. Send Aden back in the boat with the water.”

“Aden fell sick last night.”

Jack groaned. Not the cabin boy, too, barely thirteen. “Poor lad. Send one of the others, then.”

Water casks were lugged ashore, while others set out to fish and hunt.

Half an hour later, Jack, Peter, Sam, a spirited, towheaded youth of twenty, and Will, a dark-haired, quiet Irishman of some twenty-eight years, pulled the canoe across the narrow strip of sand to the mouth of the stream. Although not yet noon, the sun beat down mercilessly as they lowered the canoe into the water. Climbing in, they took up the oars.

They rowed beneath a canopy of shiny green foliage, blocking out the sky, their labored breaths inhaling the warm air. Moss grew on the trunks of the trees and vines climbed everywhere, filling the air with pungent smells. Their presence brought on an ear-splitting cacophony from brilliantly colored parrots and monkeys swinging away through the branches.

The men, sweating profusely, were forced to rest their oars when the stream narrowed and became impassable.

“It might widen farther up,” Pete said, wiping the sweat from his neck.

Jack took stock. By his calculations, they were as near to that smoke as the water would take them. “We’ll continue on foot. Let’s see where that trail goes.”

Gathering up their muskets and shot, they dragged the canoe onto the bank and set out. Jack ducked to avoid a green snake coiled around a branch. Somewhere to the left of them came the unmistakable yowl of a leopard.

“I’d rather take my chances on the sea,” Sam muttered, his red-gold hair bright against the foliage.

Jack wasn’t about to disagree with him. The air was suffocating, and who knew what lay ahead.

After tramping another mile or so, their clothes wet and sticking uncomfortably to their bodies, they emerged into a clearing to find a hut with a thatched roof. Half a dozen men and women from the local tribe gathered outside it with a gaggle of naked children playing in the dirt at their feet. They all screamed and scattered like seals facing a shark.

“What the hell?” Pete murmured, staring at the hut.

Jack had not expected to find white men this deep in the jungle, let alone a woman standing at the door of the hut. Tall and slim and in a high-collared, white dress devoid of panniers or embellishment, her heavy coil of dark hair was drawn into a bun at her neck.

She emerged from the dim doorway and into the light. Her fine brown eyes narrowed, and she raised a pistol in both hands, aiming it somewhere in the region of his heart.