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  To My Readers

  A personal message from Helen Hollick

  Writing can be a silly occupation. Solitary, often hard, tedious work for few rewards. But it is compulsive, and those few rewards can be great indeed: seeing your novel on a shelf in a bookstore; receiving an e-mail from an appreciative fan; a fabulous review; a nomination for an award. There is the sheer pleasure of starting with a blank page and experiencing the excitement of bringing a character to full and glorious life. Of delving beneath the facts of what happened and when, and filling in all the missing bits of why, how and with whom. That is the joy of writing!

  Having a book published, however, is not always plain sailing. Several years ago my backlist was dropped by William Heinemann – historical fiction had gone out of fashion – and simultaneously my agent abandoned me. I was on my own and facing the prospect of not writing another novel. I spent two weeks sobbing, then pulled myself together and set out to find an alternative publisher.

  I discovered an independent company who, as a part of their small mainstream imprint, took my backlist and my new venture: the first of the Sea Witch voyages. There were hiccups, but the office staff were enthusiastic and I had high hopes for the future. Sadly, the current economic climate is not kind to small firms, and for a second time I found myself facing the prospect of being out of print. I had four choices:

  Give up writing

  Find an alternative mainstream publisher

  Go self-publish (produce my books myself)

  Find a company that provided assisted publishing

  For me, 1 was not an option. I cannot give up writing, not while I still have a story in my head to share. Choice 2: I am mainstream published in the US and other countries, but approaching a similar UK publishing house, with their full lists and tight printing schedules, could have resulted in my novels being unavailable for several months. I have many friends who would be so disappointed to see them temporarily disappear, as would I. Lacking the technical knowledge, or time, to go self publish was not viable or practical, although the thought of running my own company was tempting. However, excited by the prospect of being in control of my destiny – and my books – I decided to opt for choice 4.

  I have known Helen Hart of SilverWood Books for several years and it was therefore an easy choice to send my precious novels into her good care, confident she would produce quality editions, quickly and efficiently.

  Transferring my list of seven books has been hard and dedicated work, not just for me, but for the team at SilverWood Books, my graphic designer Cathy Helms of AvalonGraphics, and my editors Jo Field and Michaela Unterbarnscheidt.

  Nor have the production costs been cheap – more on the ‘gulp’ level – but it’s been worth it… I love my characters and have great respect and fondness for all my followers, fans, friends and readers. Your encouragement and enthusiasm was all the incentive I needed to make the decision to keep my characters alive and well. And in print.

  For that, I thank you.

  For all lovers of a good pirate yarn

  Published in paperback 2011 by SilverWood Books of Bristol

  www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk

  Text copyright © Helen Hollick 2011

  Illustrations © Avalon Graphics 2011

  eBook by www.bristolebooks.co.uk

  The right of Helen Hollick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-906236-63-2

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback is set in Palatino Light by SilverWood Books

  Printed in England on paper from responsible sources

  September 1718

  Part One

  Nassau

  Thunder grumbled beyond the horizon and a squall of rain scythed across the ocean sending it boiling and foaming like an unwatched cooking pot.

  The surface heaved, irritated by the disturbance as Tethys, the spirit – the soul – of the ocean, awoke. She tolerated the sailors who roamed her jurisdiction, but treated them with disdainful contempt. After all, she had the choice of those she wanted; at her whim she could claim their bones, their very souls and take them down into the darkness of her vast, water-world realm. But she resented the wind and the rain for they challenged her superiority, undermined her wishes and often made their own choices to destroy those who were human and mortal. She was jealous and lonely; needed things of beauty to call her own and did not want to share.

  Among her many desires she wanted to possess the human sea captain called Jesamiah Acorne, for he was, indeed, beautiful.

  ~ I want Acorne. ~

  ~ You cannot always have what you want, Mother. ~

  Annoyed at her daughter’s insolent answer Tethys sent a tidal wave hurtling towards the shore.

  Her daughter laughed, mocking her.

  ~ Your power is waning, Mother. There are those, now, with more strength than you. You are becoming weak, you will soon be as forgotten as all the others of our kind. ~

  But despite her scorn, the daughter was curious. What manner of human was it who had so stirred her mother? And was he, truly, beautiful?

  ~ I will visit this man, Acorne, and see him for myself. Then perhaps, should I choose to do so, I will help you Mother. ~

  She did not add, as she swirled away over the white-capped grey of the seas, racing before the wind and those brewing clouds of a thunderstorm, that if she liked him she may well decide to keep him for herself.

  One

  Sunday Night

  Jesamiah, Captain Acorne, lay awake unable to sleep. He watched the intermittent flicker of lightning and listened to the distant thunder as it trundled away out to sea. Out in the main part of the great cabin, rain was beating against the skylight and the five stern windows, was drumming on the wooden deck above. From the far side of the harbour, the cracked bell in Nassau’s dilapidated church rang the hour of ten several minutes slow, the sound tinny and distorted. Tucked safe within the curve of his arm his woman, Tiola, slept soundly. Her breathing was light and even, her dark lashes feathered against her cheeks and a slight smile tipped one corner of her mouth upward. He needed to kiss her but did not want to wake her. Did not want this night to end or tomorrow to begin.

  Uneasy after the storm, his ship, Sea Witch, shuffled restlessly at her anchor cables. Jesamiah knew her every sound; the mithering creak of her timbers, the chattering of her rigging. The trickle of rainwater draining out through the scuppers. He listened for a while ensuring all was as it should be, identifying each individual murmur as if eavesdropping on a one-sided conversation. He knew his ship as intimately as he knew Tiola’s body. Every curve, every joint, every mark. He was consort and lover to them both.

  Closing his eyes he groaned silently beneath his breath, sighed again, puffing the air silently from his lips. Anxious thoughts were tumbling in his head as if they were drunken acrobats refusing to receive their applause and make a final bow. What was he to do? What in the name of all the gods could he do?

  Tugging at her bower anchor Sea Witch rocked as the wind huffed against her side, the ripple of the tide gurgling against her keel as it scurried past. She had been moored on two anchors set in different directions, but Jesamiah had pulled on his breeches and shirt and gone on deck to supervise setting the kedge as well. Only a fool risked allowing his ship to pull free and drift.

 
Tiola had squealed at his icy touch as he slid, cold and damp, back into bed; had then suggested a way he could get warm again. Responding with lust and eager enthusiasm he had approved her idea, although his lovemaking had been more tender, less fierce and longer lasting than the earlier tumble of passion spurred by the delivery of that wretched letter.

  His anger on reading it had erupted as explosive as the storm. Furious, he had crumpled the neatly written document between his callused hands and hurled it across his cabin where it had bounced off the light-oak panelling, fallen onto the faded square of carpet and malevolently unfolded itself again.

  “I am not having it!” he had shouted as he paced the few yards from one side of the cabin to the other, automatically stepping around the bulk of the starboard-side cannon, which Tiola had belligerently draped with a lace-edged cloth to disguise its hideous presence. His enraged shout had been as loud as the cannon’s roar. “Van Overstratten’s a bastard! He has no right to do this!”

  Brushing aside a strand of Tiola’s black hair that was tickling his chin, Jesamiah sighed. Unfortunately, the Dutchman had every right to summon her before a court of law on a charge of adultery. He was her husband. Jesamiah Acorne, her lover, ex-pirate, owner and captain of the Sea Witch, had no rights at all. The fact that Tiola had walked away from the marriage meant nothing to Stefan, but he was a man who, perhaps justifiably, did not tolerate being so publicly cuckolded.

  Tiola stirred, drowsing in the languid pleasure of being abed and in that warm, delicious place half way between asleep and awake. She snuggled closer to her man lying naked next to her, wondered if he had remembered to shut the centre one of the stern windows. She might get up in a minute, close it.

  “Jesamiah?” She nudged him with her elbow.

  “Mm?”

  “Did you close the window?”

  “Mm.”

  She felt his arm tighten around her, his hand covering her breast, loving and possessive. The headache that had been nagging all day had moved above her right eye; a dull, annoying nudge of pain. She would have to do something about it if it was still with her come daylight.

  Jesamiah had been so angry as he had stamped about the cabin, the blue ribbons he wore tied into his chaos of shoulder length black hair fluttering like banners behind him, his arms waving. So very angry because he did not know what to do about the situation. There was not much he could do. As a pirate he had no regard for the law, but as an ex-pirate, bound under the code of a recent government-granted amnesty, he was obliged to take note of it.

  She had sat, legs curled under her, on the velvet cushions piled along the lockers curving beneath the line of the stern windows; had suppressed a smile as he had surreptitiously kicked at the cloth draped over the cannon as he had walked past. She knew he resented its prim femininity here in his masculine domain. From habit, he had ducked beneath the overhead beams. Only under the rectangle of the skylight could he stand upright to his full five feet ten inches. She so loved him. Had only married Stefan as a means to save Jesamiah’s life.

  Looking back, it had been a stupid thing to do, but she had not had much choice at the time.

  “Any other whoreson would have cleared off back to where he bloody came from bloody weeks ago,” Jesamiah said into the darkness as he shifted his arm clutched around her waist.

  “Would you have done so?” Tiola asked implacably, moving her head to nestle more comfortably on his shoulder. “Were the boot on the other foot, would you allow another man to so publicly make a fool of you?”

  Itching at his jaw-line beard, Jesamiah tugged at the golden acorn earring dangling from his right lobe. He shrugged, muttered something uncomplimentary about merchant Dutchmen then admitted, “No, I suppose not.” As an immediate afterthought protested, “But I would not have acted like this! I would call the bastard out and shoot him. Put a bullet in his privy package where it mattered.”

  Tiola had laughed and had then said; “No Jesamiah, you would weigh anchor and turn your back on the law; you would return to piracy and run away, not stand and face what has to be.”

  Jesamiah stretched his leg, easing a slight strain of cramp. She had been right about him weighing anchor. It had been the first thing he had wanted to do when he had read that summons.

  “It is no use running,” she had added. “Once you start running you will not be able to stop. If you break the law, even in this comparatively trivial matter, you will forfeit your right to amnesty. And that will mean every man who sails with you will as well. And anyway, I would not come with you for I will not sail on an active pirate vessel. I will not wait for you to be captured and watch you hang.”

  He sighed. That was the only trouble with Tiola. She was always so practical, and always so right.

  The summons had been couched in legal jargon, written down by a rat-faced weasel, William Dunwoody, Governor Rogers’ chief clerk. An arse-licker if ever there was one. Tiola was ordered to return to her husband, by sunset, as a dutiful wife or be arrested and publicly punished. Jesamiah groaned again, shifted her weight off his numbing arm. Sunset was long gone, and he knew only too well what the punishment was.

  In a last burst of fury he had scrunched the obnoxious document up and thrown it out of the window, where it had wafted serenely on a current of air down into the scum and detritus-strewn seawater of Nassau harbour. Some scavenging fish or other had probably devoured it by now.

  Another flicker of lightning. The thunder was louder, the storm returning. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry sweetheart.”

  Tiola caressed his face, which was faintly bruised and bore the healing scars of several deep cuts. His ribs were sore, a multiple of hurts that were only half mended from the brutal treatment he had received from his brother, Philippe Mereno and from Stefan. Both men, for their own reasons, had wanted him dead. Had it not been for Tiola, Jesamiah’s brother – his half brother – would have succeeded. Mereno was now a corpse at the bottom of the Atlantic, sent there by Jesamiah’s formidable rage, and in Jesamiah’s frequently expressed opinion, it was a great pity van Overstratten had not met a similar end.

  “How can it be your fault, my luvver?” Tiola asked, her accent betraying the slight burr of her Cornish origins. She pulled him closer, her hand tenderly rubbing his back. She was seventeen and heart-achingly beautiful. “I married him and then walked away, not you.”

  “Aye, and I was the one who abandoned you in Cape Town. Had I not done so you would not have been coerced into wedding the bastard.” The bitterness at the memory spilled out. “I should have waited. I should have fetched you. Should have done any number of things, but I was too intent on taking Sea Witch as my own. I put her above you and I ought not have done.”

  Fondly, Tiola kissed his forehead. “I wed Stefan with a free will, Jesamiah.” Not so free, but she was not going to admit that. Alone in Cape Town she had waded through a fog of despair and misery, not understanding why her lover, her life, had chosen the stronger pull of a ship and the lure of the sea. Stefan had asked her to become his wife, and only then had she discovered his partnership with Mereno and their plan for vengeance against Jesamiah, the man they saw as a thief and a murderer.

  The headache, now she was fully awake, was more persistent. Trying to ignore it she admitted, “Perhaps agreeing to wed Stefan was a stupid idea. I thought it was the quickest way to help you. I did not think through the consequences of what would happen after.”

  Pushing himself up to lean on one elbow Jesamiah half grinned at her, a spark of his usual good humour returning. “It was more than stupid, but it’s good to know you’re not infallible.” He curled his hand, mindful of the two partially healed broken fingers, into her hair. “The fault is mine. I started this damned wheel rolling.”

  In the next flicker of light he glanced at the inner curve of the ship’s bulkhead, the oak timbers and her superb lines. She had not always been called Sea Witch, not when van Overstratten had owned her, that was Jesamiah’s naming. Sea Witch for Tio
la and for what Tiola was. Her name, Teo-la, short and quick, not Ti-oh-la long and ponderous. To the many she was a skilled healer and midwife, to Jesamiah, the only man alive who shared her secret, she was a woman of the White Craft. A witch.

  “I stole this ship from under van Overstratten’s nose and plundered others of his merchant fleet. All this,” he waved his hand in an aimless direction, “is about punishing me and what I am. A pirate. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Were a pirate,” Tiola reminded him with a teasing smile. “You are now a law-abiding citizen. It is me he wishes to possess.” She smiled, brushed her fingernail against his moustache. “And I thought the nautical term was commandeer, not steal?”

  For the several thousand rogues who had descended on the disreputable town of Nassau in the Bahama Islands of the Caribbean, the unconditional offer of a pardon had been a godsend. The Sweet Trade was alluring, but not when a hangman’s noose dangled too close for comfort.

  As long as no one unduly harassed them and the taverns and whorehouses along the shorefront continued to provide rum and women, these men, the dregs of the Seven Seas, were content. Jesamiah, it seemed, was the only one who was not. Jesamiah Acorne – not his birth name, that too had been Mereno – was twenty-four years old and had turned pirate a few months before his fifteenth birthday. For three weeks now he had been an ex-pirate, though few would discern a noticeable difference for he still looked and sounded as colourful as he always had.

  “Hell’s tits, woman, you can be exasperating on occasion! Please allow me to take the blame.” He smiled back at her, the flare of light glinting on the gold of his three newly repaired teeth. Nassau’s best barber-surgeon had done a good job of fitting them, despite the squirming and grimacing on Jesamiah’s part.