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  A PIRATE'S TEMPTATION

  Tiffany St.Claire

  Faced with temptation, Vane finds he must play the gallant hero after all...

  This is a work of fiction.

  None of it is real. All names, places, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real names, places, or events are purely coincidental, and should not be construed as being real.

  A PIRATE'S TEMPTATION

  Copyright © 2012

  Brittany Adams and Tina Adams

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner, except as allowable under “fair use,” without the express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  About the Author

  Get MORE Tiffany

  Chapter One

  “You still don't believe the boy to be what he claims?”

  Vane turned his head a bare inch to give his first mate a quizzical look. “Of all the young boys you've seen in your lifetime, Merry, have you ever known one to look quite that delectable?”

  His description of the boy – who even now struggled under the heavy weight of the water buckets he was carrying – as delectable made Merry flinch, Vane noticed. Then, he reached up and rubbed at his chin, eyeing Vane dubiously. “I can't rightly say, Captain. I've never put in much time ogling the waifs to make a proper judgment.”

  Vane scowled up him, dark eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't missed the insinuation in his first-mate's words. Not at all amused, he elbowed the taller fellow in the ribs.

  “Nor have I,” he bit out. “I have, however, paid quite a bit of attention to women, enough to know the lad you let come aboard my ship under the guise of cabin boy is in fact a lass.”

  Indeed, Vane thought, and he was certain this specific lass was one he knew very well. Those inquisitive eyes and that cherubic face could belong to only one person. But what he really wanted to know was what in Christendom she was doing on his ship in the first place, and why in the devil was she masquerading as a boy?

  Vane watched Merry sigh, scratch at his chin, and then cross his arms while he continued to watch the dainty, delectable youth dash about the deck as if someone had lit his pants afire.

  “I just don't see it, Captain.”

  Vane sighed dramatically and clapped the brawny fellow on the back. “Which is precisely why you have the worst luck when it comes to women, my thick-headed friend.”

  Without another word, Vane left Merry standing alone by the railing and crossed the deck in long strides to confront his new cabin boy - who was very much a girl - and who nearly ran into him in her haste to get to wherever she was going.

  Upon noticing just whom she'd almost knocked over in her uncoordinated alacrity, the girl's eyes widened. She opened her mouth, no doubt to begin making a hastily garbled apology, Vane thought, but he would have none of it.

  He caught her by the shoulders, leaned down until they were practically nose to nose and, giving her his best stern gaze, simply said, “Come with me.”

  Large round eyes the color of aquamarine, which seemed even larger due to how wide she had them opened, blinked up at him in quick succession while her lush mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.

  Vane straightened, struggling not to laugh outright at the look of pure terror written clearly in her expression. He strode to his cabin, expecting her to follow without question. She did.

  He almost closed the door on her.

  Frowning in order to conceal his mirth, Vane ushered the girl inside with an impatient sigh and swiftly shut the door, absently noting the way she flinched at the sharp sound.

  Coming around in front of her to sit on the corner of his desk, arms crossed and face hopefully clear of any sort of calming expression, he said, “Now that I have you alone, won't you be a dear and tell me what in the name of all that is holy you are doing on my ship?”

  “I'm – I'm your cabin boy…sir….” Her sentence trailed off and her gaze dropped to the floor.

  The sight of her nibbling at her bottom lip with those pearly white teeth was alluring. He allowed himself a smile. He had always loved how easy this one was to fluster.

  “No, I don't believe you are. First, you'd actually have to be a boy, but we both know that isn't true.”

  She snatched up her head so quickly Vane was surprised she hadn't dislodged something.

  “How did you know?” she asked almost in a whisper.

  He chuckled and moved from the corner of the desk to circle around her. He reached out and knocked the cap away from her head, allowing the thick, wavy tresses of her honey gold hair to tumble free and spill over her shoulders. Stopping in front of her, he reached out and took hold of her chin, tilting her head up to better meet her gaze.

  Smirking devilishly, he said, “I would have to be blind not to know you, Jillian. A face like yours doesn't exist anywhere else in all the world.”

  And he would know. He'd certainly looked often enough over the years.

  * * *

  Taking a deep breath, Jillian closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then opened them again before giving Vane her sweetest smile. “Ah, I should have known my ruse would not last long.”

  “Indeed, you should have,” Vane replied, sounding smug.

  Jillian chuckled, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “It only took you four days to realize it was me, after all.”

  “Very funny, Jillian,” Vane grumbled, brows drawn in a frown, his expression dark.

  Grinning cheekily at him, she shrugged. “I am afraid you had that one coming, my lord.”

  “Be that as it may, what in God's name possessed you to disguise yourself as a boy and come aboard this ship? The sea is no place for a woman.”

  Fazed not one whit by his surly look of disapproval, Jillian meandered over to his desk and sat herself down in the luxuriously plush chair behind it.

  “All of this could have been avoided had you stayed in London another day,” she trilled. “But, since you did not, I did the only thing I could at the time. I followed you here.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Pinning him with a solemn expression, she answered, “Because trouble of the worst sort has bound me to a most treacherous fate and I desperately need your help.”

  Chapter Two

  Vane's face was suddenly devoid of all expression. “Your father betrothed you to Newell.”

  Jillian nodded. “Not only agreed to his troth, but had the banns posted and we are to be married Sunday next.”

  “Sunday next,” he parroted. “This ship will be in the middle of the Atlantic come Sunday next, Jillian. But somehow I think you knew this.”

  She ignored his peering look of inquiry. “Of course I knew, Vane. Why else would I have come on board?”

  He was quiet for a moment. And then another. And then, his eyes narrowed. “We have to get you off this ship.”

  “What? No, we can't, Vane. Did you not hear a word I said? I cannot marry Harper Newell!”

  “Why ever not? The man is obviously good enough for your father to accept on your behalf.”

  She glared at him. “The man is old enough to be my father, Vane, for one thing. For another--”

  “Yes? What is this other reason of yours which would deny poor Newell his dream of a young bride?”

  Jillian slumped into the chair, her lips puckering into a slight pout. “I do not love him. In fact, I don't think it possible I ever could.”

  “Come now, Jillie,” he teased. “We are both aware most marriages are not made for love.”


  She fairly jumped to her feet at that. “Most marriages are not my marriage.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and continued to stare at her, even when she began to agitatedly pace back and forth within the small confines of his cabin. “You will wear the floor with your pacing, Jillie. Calm yourself and tell me how you thought stealing aboard my ship and masquerading as a cabin boy could help you out of this predicament.”

  “Simple,” she confessed. “One cannot attend a wedding in London when one is stranded aboard a ship in the middle of the Atlantic. And even if my father thought to come after me, I would no longer have to worry about marrying Harper Newell because--”

  “Because you would be ruined, Jillian. Ruined. Disgraced. Have you so little regard for your reputation?”

  “'Twas more a matter of holding your own in high esteem, my lord,” she muttered ruefully.

  “You believed I would save you, is that it? You somehow managed to convince yourself if your options were few, I would do the honorable thing and marry you? Me?” He laughed without humor. “How awkward you must now feel to realize your assumptions were so far from correct.”

  Her head snapped up. “You cannot mean it, Vane. I know you do not mean it. You would see me chained in wedlock to that … that horrid, mousy, bead-eyed old man who drools when he looks at me and tries to touch my breasts at every opportunity?”

  For a long moment, he simply stared at her. Finally, he walked toward the door, speaking over his shoulder to her as he went. “I am taking you home, Jillian.”

  * * *

  For the first time since boarding his ship days ago, Jillian was glad she had spoken with Anne before embarking on this mad scheme to save herself from being trapped in an unwanted marriage.

  Anne had warned her Vane would not easily accept his role in her salvation – even if doing so was exactly what he would have done without her push.

  Jillian knew he desired her, knew he enjoyed being in her company. But no matter how she tried to convince herself this would work, that Vane would rather wed her himself than see her spend the rest of her life with a man who was old enough to be her father and lecherous to boot, she still had doubts. Which meant it was now necessary she play every card she was dealt in this treacherous hand life had given her.

  “You won't tell your crew? If someone other than yourself should discover a woman on board--”

  Hand upon the cabin door, Vane paused, and she fought to keep a grin of triumph from turning her lips upward. Was he imagining all the things that could go wrong?

  Not that they would. She was confident Vane could easily protect her from his men. She was also rather certain that, at the moment, Vane was more than a little terrified because now he knew she was here, he would not be able to let her out of his sight. Which also meant he had just realized there would be no one to protect him from her.

  “They know. Did you really believe they would not?” His gaze slid slowly along her curves until it reached her knees. His brow rose. “Do not leave this cabin, Jillian. I meant what I said. You are going home.”

  Before he could make good his escape, she called to him yet again. “Would marriage to me really be so terrible, Vane?”

  From their first meeting three years ago at the Duke of Macclesfield's garden party, Jillian had thought spending the rest of her life with the charming and handsome captain standing before her now would truly be special indeed. Perhaps even something wonderful.

  Since then, she had begun to doubt... but never more so than at this very moment. His eyes raked her again before he pinned her with his gaze. “Utterly intolerable, Jillian. Trust me.”

  He quit the cabin and she heard the key turn in the lock.

  So now she was to be his prisoner?

  Such a situation would have been 'utterly intolerable' to her as well if she weren't fully aware he would return – and that he would be sharing this cabin with her tonight. Even he would not send her to quarter with the crew, now that he'd realized who she was.

  “Time for phase two,” she whispered into the silence of the cabin before hurrying to retrieve the bundle she'd hidden in Vane's trunk the day Merry brought her on board.

  It was time to be a woman again.

  Chapter Three

  Vane stood leaning against the railing, staring out at sea but not paying much attention to anything aside from the headache pounding inside his skull. The salty ocean wind whipped his hair into a tangle.

  “Well, is the lad in fact a lass?” Merry inquired, coming up beside him.

  Vane barely spared his first mate a glance before he nodded. “Aye, a most becoming lass. And quite betrothed.”

  “Ah, that's a pity,” Merry said with a sigh. “Is that also her reason for bein' on board, then? She not liking the bloke her father picked out for her?”

  Vane narrowed his eyes. “The man is old enough to be her father, Merry. I can't imagine any woman being pleased with such an arrangement.”

  “Doesn't sound pleasant,” he agreed.

  “No, it doesn't.”

  Vane looked to Merry after a moment, brow quirked, with a grin finding its way to his mouth. “Did I mention I know this girl?”

  “You know bloody well you didn't,” Merry muttered, expression turning sour.

  Vane chuckled. “Well, then, did I also not mention the reason she's on board is because she wants me to save her from her dastardly, soon-to-be-wedded fate?”

  Merry lifted his brows as though he were truly surprised at his captain's reveal, and mocked, “You don't say.”

  “Oh, quite.”

  Merry tsked and the two fell into silence for a bit, both staring off into the sunset, the bright gleam of the sun's rays hitting the water almost too much to look upon for very long.

  Merry was first to break the silence. “I take it you're not going to act the dashing hero and save the damsel?”

  Vane gave his first mate a telling look. “Merry, I think you and I both know that saving damsels in distress is not my area of expertise. Like as not, I am the one who causes their distress.”

  Merry didn't bother to hide his grin.

  “Quite true,” he said, and leaned against the rail with his hip, arms crossed. “What do you plan to do with the girl, then?”

  “I'm taking her back to her father, of course,” Vane answered, propping his elbows on the rail.

  “Is that so?” Merry asked, grinning. Then, at Vane's nod, he queried, “Then why haven't we changed course, Captain?”

  “Stow it, Merry.”

  * * *

  Vane walked into his cabin at half past nine.

  Jillian counted fifteen seconds after the door closed behind him before she moved from in front of the long row of windows to greet him with a charming smile and deep, graceful curtsy.

  It took Vane a full thirty seconds to pick his jaw up from the floor after taking in her appearance.

  “Do you like my dress, Vane?” she asked cheekily, holding her skirts out and twirling in a quick circle before him. “Alessandra let me borrow it. She said it would bring out my eyes, but I'm not so certain it does. I've stood in front of your mirror for hours trying to decide if it does my eyes justice as she claimed it would, but--”

  She inched closer and leaned forward a bit. Although he did everything within his power to keep an adequate amount of space between them, Jillian was quite surprised at the gurgling noise he made.

  “What do you think, Vane?” she asked, batting her lashes. “Does it do the trick?”

  Vane's gaze, she noticed, was everywhere but on her eyes. Though she fought it, she was quite unable to quell the grin of satisfaction which spread her lips.

  Finally, he spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. “Where did you get that dress, Jillian?”

  “Weren't you listening to a word I've said? I told you, Alessandra lent it to me. Isn't it lovely?”

  “My God, Jillie,” Vane groaned, turning away from her. “That gown is definitely something, but I do not
believe lovely is quite the word for it.”

  Jillian bit her lip, suddenly apprehensive about her decision to parade in front of him in such a flimsy excuse for a gown. Perhaps this wasn't such a wise decision after all.

  He whirled around to face her, eyes dark with an emotion she could not name. “Why do you seek to tempt me?”

  His voice was so low she almost didn't hear him, but hear him she did, and his words made her breath catch in her throat. She couldn't have replied if she had wanted to.

  “I am a man, Jillian. Have you somehow forgotten that? Like other men, I can only be pushed so far before my control crumbles – and you are doing a damn fine job of pushing.”

  He closed the space between them until they were so close their noses were almost touching before he reached out to cup her face gently between his calloused palms.

  Jillian pulled in a shuddering breath. His dark gaze had become hypnotic somehow, and she found she could not look away.

  Jillian hadn't time to take in a breath or let his words settle before his mouth slanted against hers, hard and unforgiving, his kiss a punishment more than a reward, and then the pressure of his lips was gone, leaving her feeling completely out of sorts.

  “I am not your illustrious hero,” he breathed the warning against her mouth, his breath warm on her lips.

  “You could be,” she whispered almost pleadingly, her gaze locked with his.

  He shook his head slowly from side to side. “No. You've chosen the wrong fellow to entrust your heart to, Jillie. I am no prince, no hero. I would break your heart in an instant and never look back.”

  “I don't believe that,” she whispered. “Why must you always push me away, Vane? I know you want me. But I don't understand... why do you forever deny yourself the very things you long for? Do you suffer from some misguided belief you don't deserve them?”

  Vane smiled grimly. “I deny myself because I know you are everything I cannot have, my dearest Jillian. Once I've seen you back into your father's keeping, safe and sound, you will not see me again. This will be the last time our paths cross.”