The Pirate Lord: Aristocrat. Rogue. Spy. Read online

  He took her hand and kissed her palm, and released a long shuddering sigh. “Take off your clothes. Let me have you tonight. I can’t talk anymore. I want to be inside you.”

  “No,” she said firmly, not knowing where she was finding the strength. “You promised you would tell me something that would put us on an even keel.” She laughed inwardly at the nautical terminology she had already acquired. “I won’t give myself to you unless you give something of yourself to me.”

  THERE WAS a long silence in which Jon seemed to be deciding if he could trust her. When at last he spoke, it was without reserve.

  “My father is Lord Stagholt of Huntington Hall; second Viscount and a peer of the realm. I am his only heir. I am Lord Stagholt, third Viscount of Huntington Hall.”

  “What?” She stumbled back. Bronwyn shook her head, trying to reassemble her perceptions of the man. The pirate captain Jon Stag—a lord! Jon Stag—a nobleman! She stared at him in disbelief but his expression was entirely sincere.

  “No man aboard this ship knows who I really am. I promised you a weapon to use against me if I ever break my word to you. Now you have it. If my men knew, they would cease to take orders from me. You have far more power over me than I have over you at the moment.”

  “Why in God’s name did you tell me?” she wailed. “You have no reason to trust me!”

  Jon fixed her with a dark fathomless stare. “I have no reason to trust anyone. I don’t know why I told you, except that I want you to know everything about me. I want to tell you secrets I’ve kept hidden for nine years. Why? Who can say,” he groaned. “It is a mystery. You confuse me, Bronwyn. The effect you are having on me puzzles me greatly.”

  He kissed her lips tenderly, awakening fresh erotic sensations in her body. Kissing him was taboo, filled with unexplored dangers. When he touched her sexually, only her body was affected. When he kissed her, it went straight to her heart.

  “I don’t understand this any more than you do,” she breathed. “I don’t understand how we can feel this way when we scarcely know each other.”

  She wished she had the courage to tell him her story but honesty was impossible now. Jon Stag belonged to the very nobility he professed to despise. The gulf between their respective classes was too great. A curate’s daughter would not be accepted as suitable match for a Viscount’s son, even if his thoughts tended in that direction. She was confident they did not.

  Jon cleared his throat. “Hawkins thinks you’ve bewitched me. He’s never seen me like this. Perhaps he is right. You see? I have already broken my word. I cannot be in the same room with you without touching you. It was a foolish vow and I am not famous for making those.”

  His gray eyes found hers and offered a warning. “Do not expect me to live up to my name or my noble birth. I am the way I am by choice. I have no loyalty to King and country. I have no feeling for anything but the Black Adder.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  JON GAVE her a searching look. “You do not seem dismayed. I expected a passionate plea to reconcile with my father and claim my inheritance.”

  “I don’t know your father. If you do not want to reconcile with him, you must have your reasons for the estrangement.”

  Jon frowned and Bronwyn realized she’d made a mistake.

  “Your father and my father are acquainted. I assumed you would have been introduced.”

  “It is possible,” Bronwyn murmured. “I—I was young. I am sorry Jon, but I don’t remember your father.” That was the truth at least.

  She clung to him and he lifted her to the bed. Bronwyn floated back against the cushions, her mind sternly listing the numerous impediments between her and Jon Stag.

  “Explain to me first—if your father is a Viscount, how did you come to be a pirate?”

  Jon stretched out beside her. “Privateer,” he corrected with a smile. “I swear you will get me hanged one day by branding me a pirate.”

  Bronwyn now flinched at the thought. “I don’t want to see you hanged. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I can only be content in this life if I know the world has you in it, Jon Stag.”

  He looked down at her for a long solemn moment. “I think we’ll be in trouble if we continue in this vein,” he warned softly. “I am not a sound prospect for a lady. We have no future together. At best, your father would not allow it. At worst, my occupation is too dangerous to take a wife. I’ve made too many enemies to risk it.”

  She knew he was right of course, but tears pressed behind her eyes just the same. Bronwyn bit the inside of her mouth. After two years of not crying at all, she would not cry twice in one day! “Then, this time with you aboard the Black will be a cherished memory,” she said bravely. “I shall think of you often. Indeed, I believe the captain of the Black Adder will never be far from my thoughts.”

  He laughed; a deep chuckle that thrilled her. She was lost in his eyes, in the power of his look. Jon said much without saying anything at all. She’d witnessed the force of his personality on his men, and now she understood the source of his authority—his noble birth.

  “Why did you leave home?” she probed gently.

  A shadow flickered across his face. “The ship I was on was overtaken by a French pirate by the name of Richard. Just like your servant boy, I was pressed aboard his ship that was crewed by a violent lot over whom their captain had no control. I was a foolish, wet-behind-the-ears scamp in those days, proud of my nobility, proud of my status—and a braggart. My status meant nothing to Richard, except for the lucrative ransom I promised him in exchange for my freedom.”

  Jon’s breathing had changed. The expression in his stone gray eyes was hard to read. She settled her weight against his chest and waited for him to continue.

  “Richard sent word to my father that his son had been captured and a demand for ransom was made: sum of some five thousand pounds. A goodly sum, but my father was rich and I was certain he would pay. He did not.”

  “What?” She had heard him but she did not believe it. A father who would refuse to pay for the safe return of his own child!

  “He sent word that ransom would not be paid to pirates or England would never be free of their tyranny. Piracy had cut heavily into my father’s profits that year. I believe he was almost glad for the chance to tell Richard to go to hell. I was only a second son. He had my older brother Nathaniel to inherit the title. I was engaged to be married at the time to a young lady in France. Her parents were also rich and also disinclined to pay to recover their daughter’s fiancé.”

  “Good God!”

  “Indeed,” Jon said with that now familiar wry grin of his that Bronwyn realized hid so much pain. “That was the feeling all around when Richard read my father’s letter aloud. The crew did not expect such a response. I think they felt sorry for me. That wounded me more than anything else. That a pirate crew should pity me, the son of a noble, was more than my pride could bear. Richard said he would have to kill me; he could not risk my father sending out the Royal Navy to recover me. I said ‘take me on as a member of your crew and I’ll give you the positions of the merchant ships carrying my father’s cargo to their distant markets.’”

  “You betrayed your father?”

  “Betrayed him and bankrupted him. And then I did the same to my fiancée’s father. I took my revenge and was returning home with my ill-gotten gains to rub my father’s nose in it, but I was too late. After he lost his wealth, he sought land in Virginia from the King and was granted it. Lord Stagholt had closed up Huntington Hall before I got there. As for my brother, I received word just this month that Nathaniel had contracted Spanish influenza and died. He left no children. I am my father’s only living heir.”

  His voice was deceptively calm but Bronwyn recognized the signs of repressed grief. She had carried a similar burden for two years.

  “I am sorry, Jon. Truly I am.”

  “My only regret is in not seeing Nate again. He was three years my senior but we were close. If he’d known a
bout the ransom, he would have paid to get me back. My brother was away at school at the time. I doubt he ever heard anything about it. With no answering reply to my father from Richard, my family assumed I was dead. That is until my father saw me on the deck of the Black ordering the shelling of one of his merchant vessels.”

  Captain Stag winced at the memory and Bronwyn knew it was much more than pride that had hurt him when his father refused to pay the ransom. It took a betrayal of love to give birth to Jon Stag’s bitter campaign of revenge.

  “Lord Stagholt ordered my capture and arrest. That was the last contact I had with my father.”

  He gave her another one of his wry smiles that hid nothing from her, but Bronwyn would not insist upon reopening a wound he would rather ignore.

  “I wager your father would move heaven and earth to get you back,” he said lightly in an obvious effort to shake off the gloom.

  “Perhaps it is different for daughters,” she replied. Her face burned.

  He drew her under his arm and held her close. The ship rocked like a cradle on the open sea and the night sky dazzled Bronwyn’s eyes outside the window. Would she ever get used to seeing so many stars?

  “I wish we could stay like this forever,” she whispered. “I shall not like to leave you.”

  Jon made no sound but she could feel the quickening in his body. She had the same rush of blood moving in her veins.

  “I won’t like surrendering you to Treacher,” he said. “He’s a terrible seaman. He’ll capsize before you reach America like as not. You’ll not be taking the boy with you. I’ve grown fond of the lad and I have need of a cabin boy.”

  Bronwyn pushed up on one elbow. “I most certainly will be taking the boy with me! The boy goes where I go and that’s all there is to it. Do not fight me on this, my lord. You will lose.”

  The pirate lord wound his fingers through her hair and dragged her lips down to his. “I love to see you angry. You delight me so, Lady Bronwyn. If you want the boy, you may have him but you will have to give me something in return. What do you have that I want?”

  His lips found hers. A shiver moved through her and lodged in her lower belly. “That depends upon what you want, sir.”

  “I want you.” His arms were around her, crushing her to him.

  “Then you may have me, sir. You may. Please, Jon, please.” She scarcely knew what she was saying anymore as he eased her back against the bed and removed her trousers.

  IF THERE was more time—if this journey wasn’t ending with Bronwyn as his hostage in exchange for gold, Jon would have held more of his story back.

  That’s the excuse he gave himself, but it was a lie. He was incapable of holding anything back from Bronwyn. She was the repository of his soul and she always would be.

  Jon tasted her lips, the sweet, plump untried lips of a woman barely out of girlhood and knew his ardor would never cool. He would carry Bronwyn inside him for the rest of his days.

  “You will plague my sleep,” he whispered hoarsely. “I shall never be free of you.”

  “Good. I am glad you will be as miserable as I will be when we are separated.”

  She clutched at his shirt and would have torn it from his body. Jon made quick work of their clothing and soon she was covered only by a thin cotton shirt that was certainly too small for her. He liked to see her full breasts pressing against the fabric and the taut dark nipples teasing him under the cloth. Jon ran the palms of his hands in wonder over the peaks.

  Bronwyn clutched the bed sheet and whimpered. She bit her lower lip and her eyelids fluttered.

  “You enjoy sex too much, Bronwyn, and it shows.” He bit her tender nipple and instantly, her back arched. “For God’s sake, do not tell General Gage what we have done here. He’ll have me horsewhipped for what I am doing to his daughter.”

  “I want to tell you to stop—I really do! I don’t know who I am when I’m with you.”

  “It is the same for me, my beautiful Bronwyn. I vowed to leave you alone and I could not keep it, not even for one night. I am in hell without you.”

  Her hands moved with a novice’s delight over Jon’s body and he clenched his jaw as she enthusiastically gripped his erect manhood. “I’ll be finished before we’ve begun if you carry on like that,” he howled in pleasure.

  “Then show me,” she whispered with a laugh. “Tell me what to do. You are the one with experience. You must teach me.”

  Jon eased her to her side so that her back was against him and they could both see the stars. He cupped his body around hers. “Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes.”

  “The boy’s shirt is too small,” he observed with a throaty chuckle.

  “He was only thirteen.” Bronwyn gasped. “I am a fully grown woman of nineteen. My dress will be clean in the morning. Where were we in the lesson?”

  Her breathing was shallow and her body was tense with expectation. The shirt was tied with a leather cord at the neck. Jon tugged on it and the front gapped wide open. He pressed his erection against her buttocks and slid his hand under the garment to stroke her breast.

  “How does that feel?”

  “Good,” she panted lightly. “I like it.”

  As did Jon. Her ripe tits more than filled his hand. He squeezed and tweaked the nipples of each one. Bronwyn’s eyes closed in ecstasy and she twisted her head, seeking his lips. Jon kissed her possessively; pushing his tongue into her mouth as he burrowed his hand in the soft dark mystery between her legs.

  He clutched the mat of hair possessively and ground his cock against her hard buttocks when he thought of another man having her. She was not wed, but she would be in due course and Jon would be relegated to the mists of memory.

  He would make this night with her a memory that would last a lifetime. One that would infuriate her husband if he knew....

  Bronwyn’s lithe body contracted when he fluttered his fingers over the puffy folds of sensitive flesh that concealed her clitoris. The vulva was an erotic dark region filled with undiscovered delights, particularly for a girl unused to a man’s touch. The courtesans Jon had visited in his youth, and from whom he received his education, assured him that no woman would forget the man who paid close attention to her pleasure first.

  “Do you like it when I touch you here?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “YES.” BRONWYN’S voice was tiny and strangled. “But you were supposed to be teaching me how to please you.”

  His erection thickened against her buttocks. “Arousing you pleases me, Bronwyn.”

  He took his time with her. One hand stroked the soft delicate hairs almost idly while the other rolled and pinched her nipples. Her breasts grew fuller and harder, as though filling with milk. The teats puckered as Jon relentlessly stroked her clitoris. His hostage was fertile—for that was what Bronwyn aboard the Black. If he wasn’t careful, she could be carrying his child when she was handed over to Treacher.

  “I should stop now,” he growled. “That is enough instruction for one night.”

  The threat was a hollow one. He could no more stop than he could capture the moon. His words only had the effect of increasing Bronwyn’s pleasure. She moaned softly and put her hand over the one he held between her legs, preventing him from withdrawing it.

  She twisted to look at him. Her eyes were dark with heat and her lips were plump and bruised from his kisses. “Do not send me away, Jon.”

  “I won’t … I can’t….”

  He crushed her lips with his own, forcing his tongue into her sweet mouth that tasted of wine. He was too eager, too hard, she would resist, he thought. But she seemed to become boneless against him, and her body moved in such a way that urged him to greater heights.

  Jon slid his fingers inside her. She was wet and ready. Her sex pulsated under his rough groping. His thumb found the sensitive nub, the locus of a woman’s secret pleasure, and he rubbed it while plundering her vagina.

  He was half-mad with lust to take her now and hard—to
pound his cock inside of her—but she was not ready—she was still so tight and small. He had to prepare her sex to receive him.

  The quivering nub was already hard, hot and erotically charged. He paused just long enough to let the tension build and then Jon dragged his finger slowly, slowly over her near-to-bursting clitoris.

  Bronwyn squealed and tried to slam her knees shut. She was sensitive in that region, being still so inexperienced. He anticipated her reaction and pushed her legs apart.

  “How do you feel when I touch you here?”

  “Dirty, ashamed, wild—it drives me quite wild with … something … I cannot describe.” Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps as he continued to stroke her almost to the point of climax.

  The silky bud was doubling in size with her mounting pleasure. Jon moved quickly between her legs and suckled her womanhood.

  Bronwyn’s hips lifted as she cried out, the sound of a woman in heat.

  BRONWYN FELL into a state of bliss—mad, unfettered bliss. Once again, his tongue and lips were doing unspeakable things to her most private place. Was such an act legal? Her flesh quivered and her legs fell open wider. She risked a look at his dark head moving between her thighs and almost lost consciousness. The vision was too erotic, too lewd to be happening to her, a country clergyman’s daughter. Her belly clutched and a rising, cresting orgasm burst within her.

  The pirate’s large hands gripped her buttocks, holding her in a seductive prison that she never wanted to escape. A second orgasm began to build in her sex. Most girls her age were married, some of her acquaintance for three years or more, and she was only discovering the mysterious power of physical love. A puzzle box that delivered delight after delight.

  His tongue did exquisite work on her defenses, breaking them down until she surrendered utterly to him. Bronwyn shouted and thrashed as the second wave of pleasure split her being. She begged him to stop, utterly spent, her body unable to take anymore.