At Her Pleasure

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

1

THE SUNSET ON THE OCEAN streaked the sky with pink and gold and turned the sea a deep vermillion.

The color of passion.

The color of romance and love and all the things that weren’t a part of Nicole Howard’s life right now. And maybe never would be again.

She leaned on the rail of the yacht and stared out at a horizon as empty and featureless as she felt inside. Maybe agreeing to come on this vacation with her friend, Adam Carroway, hadn’t been such a great idea.

With his usual persuasiveness, Adam had made the trip sound like the perfect way to recover from losing both her lover and her job in the space of a week. They’d sail to a remote island in the Caribbean, do some diving, look for some shipwreck Adam was wild to find, get some sun and forget all about life back in Amity, Michigan.

But forgetting was proving a lot harder than Nicole had expected.

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you? Stop it.”

She turned and saw Adam emerging from the ship’s cabin. Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and tanned from hours sailing on Lake Michigan, he looked nothing like the university history professor he was. Ten years older than Nicole, he had been at various times her roommate, confidant and best buddy. She thought of him as the big brother she’d never had.

He came to stand beside her on the rail. “You should have let me pound him one. Then at least you’d have the memory of him groveling to cheer you up.”

She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Dr. Kenneth Brambling, chief of Amity Surgical Associates, groveling. When she’d first taken the job as nurse for the busy surgery practice, she’d been intimidated by his dignity. Later, when they’d become lovers, she’d been caught up in the aura of power with which he surrounded himself.

Only recently had she realized Kenneth’s dignity was merely arrogance, and the power an inflated sense of his own importance, and a callousness that had shocked her—and broken her heart. “Beating him up wouldn’t have gotten either of us anything except maybe a lawsuit,” she said.

“Might have made him think twice about cheating on another woman.”

“I doubt it.” As soon as she’d gotten over the shock of learning that she wasn’t the only woman sharing Kenneth’s bed, she’d uncovered all sorts of deceptions the good doctor excelled in, from exaggerating reports to insurance companies in order to receive higher reimbursements, to lying to his partners about the real reason he couldn’t attend a staff meeting—because he’d been occupied with his latest girlfriend. The man was an accomplished liar and it was cold comfort to know she wasn’t the first fool he’d deceived.

She’d emerged from the affair doubting everything from her physical attractiveness to her judgment. Though she knew Kenneth was in the wrong—he was the one who’d cheated and lied—she couldn’t help but wonder if she was also to blame. Maybe if she’d handled things differently, she wouldn’t have ended up so hurt.

“Here, I brought you something to take your mind off the jerk.” Adam pulled a slim paperback from his pocket and offered it to her.

“What is it?”

“Some background info on where we’re going and what I hope to find there.”

Adam had tried previously to give her more details about their destination and the shipwreck he was searching for, but once he went into academic-lecture mode her eyes glazed over and she’d refused to listen further. She didn’t care why they were headed to this deserted island, only that the island was far from Michigan and her problems.

Expecting a boring academic tome, she took the book and studied the cover. A lurid watercolor portrayed a scantily clad woman standing on a gallows. Confessions of a Pirate Queen? she read the title, amused. This certainly didn’t sound like a textbook.

“Passionata, aka Jane Hallowell, was a female pirate in the early 1700s, based on a previously deserted atoll that came to be known as Passionata’s Island—our destination on this trip,” said Adam.

“A female pirate?” This definitely piqued her interest. “Were there really such things?”

“Definitely. The most well-known is Anne Bonney, but there’s also Mary Reade, and Grace O’Malley, the daughter of a pirate who followed in her father’s footsteps.” He tapped the cover of the book. “But Passionata was in a class by herself.”

Nicole turned the volume over and studied the painting of a full-rigged sailing ship with a Jolly Roger flying from its mast. “How so?”

“For one thing, she was one of the most successful. She and her all-female crew liberated merchant ships—mostly British—of millions of dollars in cargo, from gold coins to imported spices.” Adam had warmed to his subject now, assuming the tone of a professor lecturing his students.

“I guess that kind of money will get you talked about,” Nicole said.

“It wasn’t only the money people talked about.” He grinned. “Passionata had an interesting approach to life.”

As if being a female pirate wasn’t interesting enough.

“She was known as quite a seductress, and advocated ideas that were shocking for their time. Supposedly some of the highest members of British society secretly came to the island, seeking her advice on the art of seduction.”

Nicole studied the cover illustration again. “So is this one of those tabloid tell-alls about her sordid life?”

“This book was supposedly written by Passionata herself while she was awaiting trial in Newgate Prison in 1715.” He tapped the cover again. “Read it. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

She nodded. She’d brought a couple of novels with her, but none of them had been able to hold her interest. What she really needed was something to help her get over the failures she’d left behind. She could approach Confessions of a Pirate Queen like one of those self-help books everyone swore by. A woman who’d succeeded in a male-dominated field might have some handy career lessons to impart, and a pirate queen who was also a known seductress could surely teach Nicole a few things about charting her own course in her relationships with men. She lay back against the pillows in the narrow bunk in the ship’s cabin and read the opening lines with interest:

I, PASSIONATA, the most famous lady pirate, stand as a witness to the power of woman. It is this strength that has made the men who govern the laws of the land tremble in fear before me. It is this mastery and my audacity in using it that has led them to seek to silence me on the gallows. But as long as I have breath I will speak, so that others, women and men, may learn.

I am Passionata, and this is my truth.