"A sailor?" Kate quirked her lips at the blush spreading across Florence's face. "Your man is a sailor?"
Her maid bobbed her head. "Of sorts, miss," she muttered, and Kate felt a pang of heartache.
It had taken so long in the new house—built on an outcrop overlooking the Port Kingston harbor—for it to feel like home. She longed to return to the crisper air of Bristol, the Jamaican heat felt so oppressive.
But Florence had eased that homesickness so much, loosened those tight strings of grief from around Kate's ribcage. And Kate could silently admit her feelings no longer conformed to what was appropriate for a governor's daughter and her maid.
She swallowed.
"Will you be leaving?"
Florence smiled, and finished lacing Kate into her dress with sharp, breath-stealing tugs.
"Not yet, miss," she answered and offered Kate an entirely
inappropriate
wink.
Kate smiled, resisting leaning forward and pressing her lips to that strawberry mouth, kissing those rosy cheeks, sinking to her knees in front of such a wicked angel....
Maybe there was still time...
She could enjoy the theater tonight, imagining Florence's hands unlacing her dress, pulling the shift from her shoulders. Tucking the sheets up around her as her fingers trailed across her brow, her lips on her neck...
After all, there was something to be said for impropriety...
The first cannon ball hit the side of the fort with an explosion of brick that Kate felt in her bones, twisting in the carriage seat to watch another blast destroy the wall completely.
"Faster!" she shouted to the driver, but the horse reared up, startled by a man suddenly in its path, sword glinting in the firelight as smoke filled the air.
They were overrun. Half-way through the performance the warning bell had rung and she'd only just managed to make it to her carriage without being crushed to death by the panicked crowd pouring onto the streets.
Kate's eyes widened as the man mounted the coach and sliced the throat of her driver. She screamed, and threw herself out of the coach, running for the mansion.
The doors were already open, screaming and yelling pouring from the darkness that she ran to unthinkingly. Where else could she go?
Her room was on the second floor. Perhaps she could barricade it until help arrived. Soldiers must have heard the shots by now, and would be marching to aid the governor's household. All she had to do was sit tight.
She tripped up the stairs, shielding her face as a shot exploded against the banisters, splinters flying, down the hall to her bedroom—
And into the arms of two pirates, standing, waiting in the shadows.
The biggest caught her up and spun her round as the door thudded shut behind her. She struggled and thrashed, managing to catch one pirate a blow across his stubbled cheek, but he wrapped huge arms around her and strangled the fight out of her limbs.
"Save your fight, honey," he growled, his face close enough she could count every freckle beneath his blue eyes, red curls framing his brutish face, before he turned her around.
Kate's heart lurched to a stop.
"Florence!"
They'd caught her. A wild looking man with dark dreadlocks that reached his shoulders smiled back at her, his arms linked around Florence's stomach.
Fury filled Kate like fire. Florence's bonnet had been pulled from her head, discarded at her feet, and her tawny locks tumbled over shoulders. Kate felt guilty at momentarily admiring the beauty of her hair as she took in the thick cotton gag in her mouth tied round the back of her head, and the ropes biting into her wrists.
Kate made to run forward, shaking off the pirate's hands only for a second, before he caught hold of her arm and brought her to a halt with a hard yank. She cried out and the pirate holding Florence tight tsked sharply.
"Easy on the goods, James," he admonished, as the red-headed devil folded his hands around Kate's wrists with slightly more care but no less a firm grip. "Samuel, frisk her, would you? No surprises like last time, eh?"
Kate kicked out as the second pirate—a tall skinny rake with unevenly cut blonde hair—came around from where he'd been keeping an ear to the door. He caught her ankle deftly with long, calloused fingers, and dropped down to one knee. Without pause, he ran a hand up her leg and she squealed as his fingers cupped her sex. He ran his hand up her other leg, and shook out her skirts.
"No knives, no pistols."
Kate glowered as he rose up and—with no ceremony or hesitation—slipped a hand down the front of her dress. She gasped in outrage as he palmed each breast with a rough hand before retreating.
"Nothing down her front," he called out, and smiled a meanly satisfied smile. "Want me to do the maid, Howell?" he asked, and Florence's captor grinned.
"I'll handle it myself, thank you, lad."
"Unhand her! Immediately!" Kate shouted in a tone that would've had the servants quaking. Florence visibly flinched in the pirate's arms.
He snickered. "Now, now." He sat down in the armchair kept by the window next to the bed, and dragged Florence down into his lap. "We're here to talk terms."
Hope flared minutely in Kate's chest. Terms meant negotiations. Negotiations meant getting out alive.
"You have the grounds," she said, keeping her voice cold and steady. "You can take whatever you want. Just release my maid. If we remain unharmed I'll direct you to the pathways out of the house that will bypass the guards."
The pirate raised an impressed eyebrow.
"Unfortunately, despite your expert negotiating skills, those are not the terms we're seeking."
He pulled Florence higher up on his thighs and she squirmed, huffing pitifully around her gag.
"What terms?" growled Kate.
Howell's eyes crinkled as he smiled, the sound of a mansion being ransacked affording a sinister depth to his expression.
"To put it bluntly, miss," he said with an unconcerned lilt to his voice, "my men have been at sea for months. I'm sure you can understand they're in sore need of some company."
Ice prickled Kate's skin.
"My heart bleeds," she hissed, taking an thoughtless step forward as the bastard's hands settled on Florence's hips. She was yanked to a stop by the pirate gripping her wrists. "Release her," she demanded.
"She's on my lap, or on their cocks," Howell answered, and smiled cruelly as red heat inflamed Kate's cheeks at his coarse language. "But I'll be generous and let you make the choice." He paused to let his meaning sink in, and Florence shivered as he ran a hand down her side. "Will you take her place?"
Kate froze. She wasn't naive but she'd never even considered she'd find herself in such a situation.
Her eyes found Florence's, but even without the pleading shake of her head she knew she was going to do it. The thought of seeing Florence,
Her
Florence, ravaged by such brutes was unthinkable.
"Do I have your word they won't touch her?" she asked, jaw indignantly high.
Howell placed a tanned hand over his heart. "My solemn oath."
Kate let the air out of her nose in a slow sigh. Perhaps they'd get through this with the minimum of molestation. Perhaps they wouldn't, but she had to try.
"Fine," she uttered with more courage than she felt, and then curled her lip in disdain. "I'm sure I'll barely feel a thing."
"Oh, she has a cruel tongue," Howell laughed to his men, and the one holding her hands behind her back rolled his groin against her hands. Kate swallowed. "Enjoy it then."
The brute called James pushed her forward towards the bed, his hands still wrapped around her wrists. He took a seat on the mattress—close to Howell so Kate need only to turn her head to catch a glimpse of Florence—and as he turned her into him, he forced his fingers into the gaps of hers, their hands linked like lovers in a dance.
"On your knees then, sweetheart," he growled, and squeezed her hands enough that Kate felt her bones creak. The warning was evident: any foul play and he'd break every finger.
He released one hand to untie his trousers, and as Kate hitched her skirt to drop to her knees, he pulled his cock out within an inch of her face.
Kate faltered. In correlation with the rest of him, he was
large.
Wiry red hair thatched his groin, freckles dappled even the skin of his pale stomach. He smelled of salt and the sea, and Kate didn't have time to take a breath before James' hand was in her hair, pulling her face flush with his erection.
"Lick."
She hissed in a breath as his fingers dug in, and after a second to grit her teeth in anger, drew the flat of her tongue up his length.
"Make a good show, darlin'," Howell stage-whispered, running a hand down Florence's arm. "We don't want our girl to think you're not having a nice time."
Kate felt her eye twitch, but she found herself agreeing. Since this was happening she'd endure it graciously. For Florence.
She licked again and James' grip on her hand loosened, his thumb running appreciatively across the thumb of the hand he was still holding.
"There's a good girl," he crooned, the softness in tone making Kate's hackles rise. "You take your time."
