Chapter One

      Off the coast of Virginia—1721

      ‘Open the door or we’ll break it down.’

      Lady Cassandra Shepherd flexed her fingers over the butts of her father’s matched duelling pistols and remained silent. Dread and the humid air of the mid-Atlantic nearly smothered her and made the mother-of-pearl handles stick to her skin.

      ‘What’ll we do, my lady? What’ll they do to us if they get in here?’ asked Jane, the young nurse, her weak whisper nearly lost beneath the pounding boots, screaming and gunfire overwhelming the small cabin from the pirates pouring on to the Winter Gale.

      Cassandra could answer the question, but didn’t. ‘Don’t worry, Jane, all will be well. I promise.’

      Cassandra smiled at Dinah, her two-year-old daughter, who clung to the nurse’s skirts, her eyes wide with concern. Innocence made her braver than Jane, but not immune to the panic of the adults. Dr Abney stood beside Cassandra, clutching his old sea service pistol. All four of them watched the door from behind the trunks where they’d barricaded themselves inside the Captain’s cabin at the outset of the attack.

      No further demands were made. Beyond the door, the air cracked with blunderbuss fire and the continued commands and hollering of the pirates on deck, their voices much closer and more commanding of the crew than before. The pirates on the other side of the door didn’t repeat their demand.

      ‘Perhaps they’ve gone away,’ Jane choked out.

      ‘They won’t be put off so easily.’ Dr Abney exchanged an uneasy look with Cassandra and cocked his pistol. His ball wasn’t for the pirates, but for her. Hers were for Jane and Dinah, to spare them from slavery or a worse fate at the hands of these brigands if Cassandra couldn’t think of a way to save them all. The reality of it almost shattered her nerves and she prayed, if the time came, she’d have the courage to do the unthinkable.

      No, it won’t come to that. She gripped the weapons tight and focused on the door. There was still a chance they might survive, no matter how slim, and she would seize it. She must.

      Everyone jumped when a blow rattled the flimsy door along with the narrow and spindly desk and the low trunk they’d shoved against it. The hit shook the iron hinges loose in the jamb and the wood bowed under the pressure. It was clear the rusted hinges wouldn’t hold against another assault and the desk and trunk would only delay and not stop the intruders.

      A final strike wrenched the hinges free and sent the door crashing down to crush the desk and seesaw across the top of the trunk. Filthy men squinting to see in the dim light stumbled into the cabin, tripping over the broken wood.

      Cassandra raised the pistols, demanding her hands remain steady. She didn’t have enough lead shot to send these dogs to hell, but she wouldn’t give up, not before she tried to save herself and her daughter.

      ‘How dare you enter here,’ she scolded loudly.

      The pirates jerked to a halt and their grimy jaws fell open at the sight of her.

      ‘Pardon us, lady, we weren’t meaning to intrude,’ a slim man with weasel-like eyes over a pointed nose replied, his hands slipping one over the other in their eagerness to be on her. ‘If you’ll be puttin’ down the pistols, we’ll be gettin’ to business.’

      ‘Mr Barlow, ’tis Captain’s orders no woman is to be forced and no passengers molested,’ a man in a red Monmouth cap, his grey hair sticking out from beneath it, warned, more interested in the contents of the damaged desk than Cassandra. He searched through the papers that had been scattered about when the door had broken it, probably searching for any gold or jewellery the Captain kept there.

      ‘I don’t give a fig for Captain’s orders,’ the weasel spat. He turned back to Cassandra and licked his lips. ‘I’ll be tastin’ a little of the finery he keeps for himself.’

      Mr Barlow took a menacing step forward, and Cassandra cocked the pistols. ‘Come closer and you’ll regret it.’

      ‘Don’t go givin’ orders, missy. There are twelve of us and only two shot.’ His lascivious smile revealed a mouth of yellow and missing teeth.

      A shudder slid down Cassandra’s spine, but she kept her stance strong. ‘Then you’ll be the first to die.’

      The weasel exchanged an uneasy glance with the other men who took a step back, willing to let the weasel take the first ball before they attacked.

      ‘Thar be no need for anyone to die.’ Mr Barlow held out his hands in a forced friendly way, but Cassandra didn’t relax.

      ‘Then fetch your Captain. I’ll discuss the terms of my surrender with him.’

      ‘No need to fetch him. He’s here.’ The deep voice rolled through the room from the doorway, the Virginia accent drawing out the vowels sounding familiar, like a hummed song she couldn’t remember the words to.

      Mr Rush jerked to his feet, still clutching a handful of papers, while the other pirates hustled to shove aside the broken desk and door and make way for their Captain.

      The sheer mass of the man blocked the light from outside when he crossed the threshold, his presence shrinking the already tight quarters. He stood above six feet tall with shoulders like a thick yoke draped in a white shirt open at the neck. Perspiration soaked the linen, making it cling to the dark tan of his chest and each ripple of his taut stomach. Dark breeches tucked into high boots covered the solid muscles of his legs. A Spanish sword swung from a belt at his hip and a leather sash slung across his torso held two pistols fine enough to make Lord Chatham, her great-uncle, jealous. The butts of the pistols clanked together when he jerked to a halt at the sight of her. From behind the thin black half-mask that swept the bridge of his nose, leaving his cheeks and mouth free, his rich blue eyes with a hint of yellow near the irises widened, his shock striking Cassandra harder than the cannonball that had shattered the Winter Gale’s mainmast.

      He didn’t expect to find a lady on board, she thought. And yet there was more to his shock than her sex, station or even her weapons, especially when he glanced to the side, avoiding her eyes the way Giles, her late husband, used to do whenever Cassandra had confronted him about his mistress.

      Something in the slight tilt of the pirate Captain’s head while he studied the rough floorboards shifted an old memory deep inside Cassandra, of Virginia pine trees and warm fields, and sitting on the porch at Belle View reading Greek myths aloud with her former fiancé in the days before he’d gone to sea and then died. Anger rushed in with the memory and, when the Captain met her gaze again, she stepped back, stunned to find the same indignation blazing in his deep blue eyes.

      He’s angry at me for resisting. She ran one finger down the curve of the trigger, afraid her act of defiance might have placed her, Dinah and the others in more peril. She tensed, waiting for him to yell or lunge at her the way Giles had whenever she’d defied him. Instead, the Captain swept into a deep bow, his posture concealing the confusion in his eyes. ‘Captain Rose, at your service, Miss—?’

      Captain Rose straightened, his brow above the mask rising a touch while he waited for her answer. However, his lips moved slightly as if he already knew it and was about to say her name.

      Impossible.