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Authors: Kinley MacGregor

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BOOK: Master of Seduction
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Reluctantly, Morgan rose from his chair and did as Jack wanted.

It was only after Morgan had closed the door behind him that Jack dared a look to where Lorelei stood arguing with Justin.

Now
this
was amusing.

The moron had brought her here, no doubt, to listen for word of Jack Rhys, and as soon as she found him, the moron refused to believe it.

What did she see in that man anyway?

Women. He’d never understand them.

Jack knew he should leave before Justin realized who he was. But in truth, he was enjoying this little drama too much to leave. Besides, there was no trap from which he couldn’t escape. No man or woman who could hold him.

Well, a naked woman in bed could hold him for a little while if she appealed to him.

And Lorelei Dupree appealed to him greatly.

He slid his gaze appreciatively over Lorelei’s back. The short skirt fell several inches from the floor, giving him a nice view of her trim ankles. They were shapely and petite, and he wondered if they were covered with freckles like the bridge of her nose.

She gestured furiously toward him, then fell silent when their gazes met and locked.

Jack felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. Time seemed suspended as they stared at each other. The droning conversations faded until all he could hear was the thrumming of his own heart.

Jesus
, but there was magic in that woman’s gaze. Some unknown alien power he’d never before encountered.

All he wanted to do was cross the room, pick her up in his arms, and carry her off to a bed somewhere and make love to her for the rest of the night.

And it was then he made a decision.

He’d intended to leave Lorelei out of this. But if Wallingford wanted her involved, so be it. He wasn’t the kind of man to look a gift horse in the mouth. Fate had thrown her into his path twice and far be it from him to question what fate had in store for him.

Justin came to his feet. His face flushed with rage, he walked stiffly to where Jack stood.

It took all the control Jack possessed to break eye contact with Lorelei so that he could meet Justin’s peeved expression.

“Forgive me, sir,” Justin said before casting a quick, superior glance toward Lorelei. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but could you please tell me, are you Jack Rhys?”

“Aye, lieutenant,” he said with a wicked grin. “You have your man. The question is, can you keep him?”

Justin’s eyes widened and he fumbled for his sword. “It’s him, men!” he shouted. “Seize him!”

Laughing at Justin’s ineptitude, Jack reacted in an instant. He shoved Justin out of his way. The two men who had been sitting with Justin led Lorelei toward the door.

Jack unsheathed his sword and raced after them with only one thing in mind.

Lorelei Dupree.

Two plain-clothed Regulars emerged out of the crowd and blocked his path to the door. He laughed at them. Did they really think they could stop him? He’d thwarted entire fleets sent out to destroy him.

Black Jack Rhys was not so easily taken.

With only a handful of moves, he disarmed them and was back on the trail of his target.

Jack rushed through the door to see Lorelei being helped into a cart. One of the soldiers with her turned to face him and unsheathed his sword.

This was rich, Jack thought with a smirk. Did the man honestly think he could protect her? That anyone could keep Jack Rhys from taking what he wanted? No one stood in his way.

Ever.

Just as they crossed swords, a shot rang out. Jack felt a sharp pain across his right shoulder blade. Glancing behind him, he saw Justin holding a smoking flintlock.

His jaw locked in anger, Jack sidestepped his foes and leapt to the back of the cart to survey the damage. Blood seeped from the wound, but the bullet appeared to have been deflected by a bone. Though painful, it wasn’t enough to kill him.

It was just enough to make him mad.

No one drew blood from Black Jack Rhys! Tasting vengeance on his tongue, he took three steps toward the front of the cart, tossed the soldier next to Lorelei to the ground, then took his seat. Before she could move, Jack grabbed the reins and slapped them across the horses’ backs.

The cart lurched sharply, then sped forward.

Lorelei turned in the seat to stare back at Justin as they sped away, her face frozen in a state of shock.

“Lorelei!” he heard Justin scream as they left him behind.

Her cheeks paling, Lorelei faced Jack. “What are you doing?”

“’Twould seem, fair lady, that Black Jack Rhys is abducting you.”

L
orelei’s heart hammered in fear and yet as she stared at Jack, there was an air of playful good humor about him. His eyes were alight. He didn’t seem to be the cold-blooded killer of legend. He seemed more like a mischievous child completing a prank.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked.

He looked at her, his face boyish and charming. “Believe it or not, and I’m sure you won’t, I mean you no harm.”

She scoffed. “Am I supposed to believe that the most wanted pirate on earth has abducted me and means me no harm? Surely, sir, you take me for a fool.” And Lorelei was anything but a fool. It was time she parted company with Black Jack Rhys.

As she attempted to jump from the cart, the pirate grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward him. “I told you you wouldn’t believe it.”

Struggling against his hold, Lorelei drew back to slap him.

His face turned dark, foreboding. “Don’t.” That one word carried more power in it than a raging hurricane.

Not willing to test his brutality, she settled down and eyed him warily. “You don’t really expect me to just sit here quietly while you abduct me?”

“That’s exactly what I expect you to do.”

“You haven’t been around many women, have you?”

When he spoke, his voice was empty and strange to her ears. “I’ve been around enough.”

“Well,” she said, “they certainly didn’t teach you any manners.”

“I’m a pirate,” he scoffed. “What, would you have me spout poetry?”

She stiffened her spine at his reprimand. “You didn’t appear the pirate last night at the party. You were a gentleman then.”

“Yes, well, you didn’t appear to be a tavern whore last night, but—”

“Don’t you say it,” she snapped, her vision dulling at the second time someone had insulted her so.

He laughed again. “I apologize, Miss Dupree. I have no doubt of your innocence.”

Her fear multiplied. “Is that why you intend to rape me?”

He pinned her with a furious glare. “I have no intention of raping you.”

“Then why this elaborate abduction?”

“Why not?” he asked flippantly. “I was there, you were there, Lord Pasty Face was there. It seemed like a perfect opportunity.”

The knot in her stomach drew tighter. She tightened her grip on the back of the seat as the cart rattled along the dirt road. “An opportunity for what?”

He didn’t answer as he veered the horses to the left fork in the road that headed toward the docks. He glanced back over his shoulder, then he looked at her. “Let’s pretend it’s a game, shall we?”

Was he serious? Or just insane?

“A game?” she gasped in indignation. “A game of what?”

“Of chance and chase.”

Could the man never answer a straight question? At any other time, she might have respected his quick thinking; however, it was her future they were talking about and she wanted to know what this man had planned. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning you, my little guppy, are the bait I intend to use to lure a shark out of his nest.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” he said, his gaze veiled. “I don’t want you to. Suffice to say, you’re going to be my guest for awhile.”

Lorelei could see the docks up ahead. She had no intention of allowing him to take her on board his ship. She’d heard too many tales of what men like Black Jack Rhys did to the unfortunate females they captured. “Thank you for the invitation, but I really must decline.”

This time his laughter was evil. “I’m afraid I
really
must insist.”

As soon as Jack slowed the cart to a pace that wouldn’t injure her, Lorelei leapt from her seat. A loud rending of fabric sounded as the hem of her dress caught in the cart and tore a gaping hole in her skirt. Ignoring it, she hit the ground on her side with a fierce thud that knocked the breath from her. Even so, she refused to succumb to the pain. She pushed herself up from the ground and ran. Her legs trembling, she prayed she could make it to the alleys of the warehouses before he caught her.

She didn’t.

Jack’s arms wrapped around her and the two of them tumbled to the ground. As they fell, Jack rolled so that his body absorbed the impact and they came to land a few feet from the cart with Jack on the bottom.

Lorelei dug her elbows into his chest in an effort to loosen his hold so that she could rise to her feet. He groaned and tightened his arms around her until she could no longer move.

Lying atop him, she stopped struggling and stared down into those cold gray eyes. She licked her suddenly dry lips, afraid of what he might do to her now that he had her firmly within his grasp.

To her relief, he released her and stood. Before she could run again, he pulled her up from the ground and locked his hand tightly around her upper arm. “As I said,” he ground out, “I really must insist.”

When she tried dragging her feet and twisting out of his grip, he growled low in his throat, then picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

“Let me go!” she shrieked.

“I have no intention of renewing our chase.” He locked his arm around her legs to keep her from kicking him.

As Lorelei drew back to pummel his back, she caught sight of the dark stain spreading on his shirt. Frowning, she touched it, then drew her hand back to see it covered in red.

It was blood.

“If you so much as pat that wound,” Jack warned, “I’ll see your back lashed with a whip.”

Tempted to disregard his words and pound anyway, she decided the saner course of action would be restraint. This was a man whose very name symbolized murder, mayhem, and cruelty.

Besides, as large as he was, it would probably only make him angry. And she’d already had a good indication that Black Jack Rhys was a fearsome ogre when angered.

He carried her up a gangway.

“Jack!” She heard a man’s excited shout. “Thank God, I was just…” The man’s voice trailed off as Jack stepped aboard the ship.

“What the devil have you done now?” the man demanded.

Jack ignored him as he carried her across the deck, past crew members who stared at them in a mixture of curiosity and disbelief, and descended a ladder to the decks below.

The man followed behind them, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gulping for air.

Lanterns were placed on the wall every few feet, giving her enough light to finally see the bloodstain seeping across Jack’s shirt. It was an ugly wound and she recalled the sound of a gun firing not long before Jack had tossed her poor escort to the ground and taken his seat.

The man trailing them was extremely handsome and in his early twenties. With black hair and brown eyes, he stood almost as tall as Jack. She had seen him earlier that night at the tavern talking with another man she had suspected of being a spy by the way he would draw silent at her approach and scan the room nervously while she served them.

But the man behind her had not been so cautious.

“Is this the girl from the party last night?” the stranger asked.

“Aye,” Jack answered. “I told you, pup, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“What is it with you and this woman?” the man asked Black Jack, looking somewhat dumbstruck. “Jack, you can’t go around abducting heiresses. Are you insane?”

Jack snorted. “So I’ve been told.”

“Make him let me go,” Lorelei begged the handsome stranger. “Please don’t let him keep me.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

Lorelei heard footsteps as someone approached from in front of them.

“Tarik,” Jack said in greeting. “Get the men ready to sail. We leave immediately.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Jack paused and Lorelei tried to see the newcomer, but Jack held her so that all she could see was the shocked look on the dark-haired man’s face. Raising up, she bumped her head against one of the lanterns.

“Hold still, woman,” Jack snapped. “The last thing you need is a concussion.”

Lorelei balled up her fists wishing she could strangle the beast.

“And Tarik,” Jack said, his voice thick with warning. “We were being chased. If they show up on the docks, aim to maim. Do what you have to, but try not to kill anyone.”

“Captain?” the man asked as if the order confused him.

“Just do it. Tell the men I’ll have the head of anyone who kills a Brit tonight.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Jack turned her to the wall as the man walked past them.

“Let me go!” she insisted, knowing it would do no good, but still feeling the need to try.

The dark-haired man stepped forward and gestured toward her. “You’ve got to let her go, Jack. She’s more trouble than even
you
want.”

Jack’s low laugh was his only response.

Now the man trailing them looked as if he wanted to throttle Jack as much as she did. “Please talk some sense into him,” Lorelei begged, hoping this stranger held some sway over her captor. At least he appeared to be more reasonable than the pirate.

“Enough of this, Jack. Let her go.”

Jack ignored him. “Lay on, Macduff; and damned be him that first cries, halt, enough.”

Shakespeare? she thought with a frown. The king of pirates was quoting Shakespeare?

“Very amusing, Jack,” the dark-haired man snarled. “Need I remind you, Macbeth lost his head.”

Jack said nothing more as he opened a door, walked to the center of a large cabin, and finally released her. Immediately, she ran for the door.

“Stop!” Jack roared in a voice so powerful that her body involuntarily obeyed.

He crossed the room and stood before her. His eyes devoid of emotion, he stared sharply at her. “I weary of chasing you, my lady. If you so much as take one step from this room, then I shall be forced to kill you for it.”

She swallowed convulsively as the rumors of his ferocity played through her mind. No one crossed Black Jack Rhys and lived.

“Better dead than raped,” she said, her voice cracking with nervousness.

Jack rolled his eyes. He turned to the dark-haired man. “Would you please tell the wench that rape isn’t included on my list of crimes against nations?”

“Neither was kidnapping until tonight.”

Jack’s look could have forged steel. “You’re not helping. And I haven’t any more time to deal with either one of you.” Jack directed his gaze back to Lorelei. “You’ll be locked in here until we get safely past the Brits. Try to relax and stay low to the floor.”

“Low to the floor?” she asked in confusion.

“Aye, you’re less likely to lose your head should a cannonball come crashing through the wall.”

“Is that a jest?” she gasped.

When he didn’t answer, she turned to the dark-haired man. “Is he joking?”

“Nay.”

Jack pulled a set of keys from his pocket. “Don’t worry,” he said with a taunting smile. “If the ship starts sinking, I promise I’ll come back and unlock the door.”

Her stomach sank faster than a capsized boat.

Lorelei was too stunned to move until after the two men had left the room and closed the door behind them.

Rushing to the door, she rattled the knob as Jack locked it. “Nay!” Lorelei shrieked. “You have to let me go.”

But it was no use. Jack locked the door and she listened as he and his companion walked away from her room.

Lorelei closed her eyes in defeat. Her fate was sealed and she was doomed.

 

J
ack, I know you’ve—”

“Listen,” Jack said, cutting Morgan off as they headed back topside. “I need you to deliver a message for me to Lieutenant Justin Wallingford.”

“I don’t care if it’s to…” He watched as the name dawned on Morgan. “Wallingford?”

Jack nodded. “She’s engaged to Lord Wallingford’s son.”

The color faded from Morgan’s face. “You can’t be thinking what you’re thinking.”

Jack rubbed his aching, wounded shoulder. He needed to get Morgan off his ship and tend his wound. The last thing he wanted was to bleed to death before he had a chance to even his score.

“Morgan, I don’t have time to write the letter myself. I need you to do it after I’m gone. Tell Wallingford I’ll be waiting for him at
Isla de Los Almas Perdidos
.”

“This is suicide, Jack.”

“No,” he said, narrowing his gaze on the docks. “This is revenge.”

Morgan glared at him for several seconds before he spoke again. “You know Thadeus wouldn’t approve of this.”

Jack felt a tick begin in his jaw as he thought about old Thadeus. He’d been a kind, gentle man. A physician by trade and a sailor by choice, Thadeus had befriended Jack after he’d escaped and signed on to sail with Robert Dreck’s pirate crew. When Robert had retired from piracy, the old man had chosen to sail with a merchant ship. A merchant ship that had turned Patriot at the outbreak of this bloody damn war. A ship Wallingford had captured eight months ago.

He’d been looking for the bastard ever since.

His eyes hard, he snarled at Morgan. “I’m sure Thadeus didn’t approve of being tied to the main mast of the
White Dove
while Wallingford set fire to it, either.”

Jack tried to step past Morgan, but Morgan grabbed his good arm and turned him back to face him. “I know you loved the old man, Jack. But let it go before you get killed.”

Grimacing, Jack wrenched his arm free. “Let it go? This from a man out to destroy Isaiah Winston? How long have you been after that bastard?”

“That’s different. He murdered my father.”

“What the hell do you think Thadeus was to me?” How he hated hearing the pain in his voice. Jack prided himself on the fact that nothing ever touched him. But Thadeus had. In a life filled with pain, Thadeus had been the only salve he’d ever known. The old man’s wisdom and kindness had been the only thing that kept Jack whole and sane.

There were times he hated the old man for not joining his crew. If he had, he’d be safe now. Instead, Thadeus had joined those damned Patriots and gotten himself taken.

There had been no survivors. Wallingford had ordered his crew to shoot any man who escaped the flames.

Morgan and Jack stood there glaring at each other until Morgan finally sighed. “I’m sorry, Jack. I truly am. But this won’t give you peace any more than getting yourself killed will bring Thadeus back.”

BOOK: Master of Seduction
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