Heather Graham's Christmas Treasures Read online

  "As I said, Monsieur le Pirate! I will accompany you nowhere!" she charged him.

  "Is that so?" he asked softly.

  And then, before she could say more, she found herself swept off her feet, crying out as she was tossed over his shoulder. She felt his naked flesh, burning hot, against her cheek. She felt his heartbeat, felt his breath.

  "Bastard!" she charged him, trying to rise, but to no avail. She could only struggle up and slam her fists against his shoulders.

  An effort surely wasted, for he did not seem to notice her ferocity at all. Again, he moved like a cat. As swift as a panther in a New World jungle, striding across the deck, leaping atop the rails of the joined ships.

  "Wait, si'l vous plait!" she heard Don Diego calling out in distress.

  On his own ship, still heedless of the woman pounding upon his shoulders, the pirate Red Fox spun around.

  "What is it?" he demanded irritably.

  "What—what will you do with her?" Don Diego asked breathlessly.

  "What will I do with her?" The question seemed to puzzle him. Then he laughed softly. "Why, I will ransom her, of course."

  "The Comte Raoul Flambert will pay for her—for her safety! For her—her innocence—her chastity!" Don Diego cried swiftly.

  "Will he?"

  Tessa found herself going still suddenly at the strange tone in his voice, one that was very bitter.

  "He will pay whatever price you demand!" Don Diego cried out eagerly.

  "Oh, indeed, he will pay!" the pirate Red Fox called out. "Indeed, he will pay."

  "You will ransom her quickly!"

  "I will ransom her," the pirate answered softly, "when I have finished with her!" And with that, he spun around, and Tessa heard herself scream with rage and dread, pounding furiously against his hard-muscled shoulders again as he began to stride across his own deck.

  Heading for his own captain's cabin.

  Chapter 2

  So this was to be her answer! Tessa thought as they burst through the cabin door, and she found herself flung down hard on a huge bunk, covered with a richly embroidered—French!—spread. She landed hard and breathlessly upon a deep pile of down pillows, and she stared in a wild fear and fury at the man who had brought her there.

  He seemed amused once again. Leaning back against the door to his cabin, he smiled and made no move, yet watched her as she struggled to sit up, to settle her wayward skirts and petticoats, to gather some dignity.

  And to seek some defense.

  He made no move toward her, yet she could not stop thinking that he was, indeed, like a New World jungle cat, playing with her, teasing her, aye, yes! A cat playing with its food—right before devouring it whole. He smiled, yet there was a look of sheer danger about the man. He was young, agile, striking—and quite deadly, Tessa was certain. Any minute now, he would be upon her...

  This, this, was her answer.

  She had prayed—day and night—to be rescued, and now here she was, the prisoner of a pirate captain. Not, it seemed, to find escape in execution—he meant to spare even the captain and all the crew of her own ship. No! She wasn't even to be used and abused and released—she was to be used and abused...

  And sold to Raoul once again!

  It wasn't fair—she simply wouldn't have it! This wretched privateer was not going to seize her father's ship, seek to frighten her to tears, debase and molest her—and get away with it!

  "You... bastard!" she hissed, the words very low, husky, tense, and filled with venom. "You will not get away with this! Flambert will slice and dice you, rip you to ribbons! He will slit you from the gullet down to the toes!"

  He arched a brow to her. He leaned against the door, his head somewhat cocked, his arms crossed over his broad chest. "He'll do all that?" he inquired.

  "More!" she promised.

  "Ah! I am a-tremble!" he told her, eyes wide with mockery, then his smile faded and he pushed away from the door. "Flambert, my lady, will not challenge me. No, I am afraid, ma belle, that your elegant comte will make no effort to come to your rescue—he will pay the price asked under any circumstances, and then, only then, will you be returned to the waiting arms of your lover."

  "In the best of condition, I do assume!" she said, eyes narrowing, breasts heaving.

  Again, the bright light of amusement lit his eyes. "Hmm. I shall have to think on that. I utterly despise the man, so it will not be out of consideration for a worthy enemy that I would spare you. Of course, it has been rumored that he wouldn't consider anything but the sweetest innocent for a bride, and since you have come all this way... Well, perhaps it is your own good behavior which will determine the condition of the goods I offer for ransom."

  Outraged, she found herself standing, staring at him incredulously. "Pompous English... ass!" she found herself calling him. They were still speaking French, and for the first time in her life, she was finding herself in sympathy with her father's people and determined to speak their language. "You mustn't be too sure, counting your own magnificent courage—preying upon ships carrying women!—against that of a decent man such as the Comte Flambert!"

  "Decent! Ha!" he exclaimed, shaking his head. "My lady, it might be every mercy I have offered you, for each hour I hold you keeps you from the hell you will find with that heinous creature. But then perhaps you have as yet to meet your fiancé. His face is not so monstrous, but I promise you, his soul is."

  "That from a pirate!" she said sweetly. "And you are mistaken. I have met my fiancé."

  "Have you, then? Tell me, was my mistake in thinking that you had not met him—or that you were not aware that the man is a monster?"

  "English pirate, you should dive straight to hell!"

  "Does that mean you know him to be a monster?"

  "It means nothing of the kind!" she lied swiftly.

  "Oh." Did some flicker of disappointment touch his eyes? He seemed to tire of the game between them.

  "Since you do not find him to be so loathsome, you will write him a letter, and do so immediately. You will assure him that you are my prisoner, awaiting his rescue. His monetary rescue. And you will enclose a lock of that beautiful blonde hair to assure him that I do indeed hold a treasure he has been joyously contemplating. My desk sits yonder. I will leave you, and you may begin now. Oh, you may also assure him that—as of this moment—you remain as chaste a maid as you boarded my ship, but you might want to suggest that he hurry, that we are impatient men, too long at sea. And ravaging monsters ourselves, of course."

  "I will say nothing of the kind," Tessa informed him regally.

  He stiffened, staring at her. "Your pardon, my lady?"

  "I will do nothing of the kind."

  "I have told you—"

  "And I have told you. I will not aid in your raiding and thievery! I will not write a word down on paper! If you must convince Comte Flambert that you are holding me, then you will do so on your own!"

  "You do not know what you risk!" he charged her harshly.

  "And you do not fully comprehend—I do not care!" she assured him, but despite her brave facade, she heard her voice trembling, just a bit, at the end. Did he too hear that slight tone of fear, of uncertainty?

  He bowed to her, suddenly, deeply. "My lady, I will leave you for the moment. Your courage and bravado are most stirring—but hardly temperate or intelligent, under the circumstances. I would prefer not to harm you. But I do have a fierce and personal hatred for Flambert, and as he is a coward I am most unlikely to meet again at sea, it will not take much to persuade me to deny him anything that he might prize. My lady..."

  And again, he bowed.

  In the same swift movement he turned, threw open the door, and with a single long stride exited the cabin, slamming the door hard behind him.

  Shaking, Tessa sank back down to sit upon the pirate's bunk. It seemed as if the waters of a rushing stream swept through her as she lay upon the bed, clutching the pirate's plump down-stuffed pillow, resting her head upon it as she st
ared at the door, stunned by all that he had said...

  And her own responses.

  This was not what she had intended when she had prayed for rescue...

  For just one miracle. One little Christmas miracle. And it seemed that she invited disaster down upon them all instead!

  She did not want to marry Comte Raoul Flambert. This pirate certainly could not know her feelings, and she most certainly dared not give them away. But she had met Flambert five years ago when he had come to England with her father. She had been in school in Oxford, the nuns had been in an absolute tizzy, and she had been in something of a wild mood herself—she had not seen her father since she had been a child of three. Her mother had died that year. Her grandfather, the lofty English Lord Simmons, had swooped down on her father's estate just outside Paris and assured Comte de la Verre that Tessa must be carefully, gently raised, and the raising of such a gentle young creature was best done in England. She never knew exactly why her father had agreed, except that, as she grew, she had learned that he had been very young and extremely handsome, and though he had loved his English wife dearly enough, with her passing he was once again a most eligible man within the marriage market, and there were fine estates for a man to gain through marriage. So Tessa had gone to England, and she had dearly loved both her grandparents, and she had even liked the school they had chosen for her, and the kindly, if sometimes far too naive, nuns who had taught her there. When her father had arrived with Flambert, Sister Mary Margaret had brought Tessa down to meet the men, and although Mary Margaret was nearing sixty—if she was a day—she didn't seem to fathom a thing about her father's friend—which Tessa did. Age, apparently, did not guarantee either wisdom or instinct.

  Flambert was striking, a handsome man like her father, thin-featured, with rich, long, chestnut curls; a slender mustache; and small, perfectly curled beard. His eyes were dark and sparkled with a most unnerving light as they slid up and down Tessa's length. Tessa had scarcely recognized her own father, but then it had been well over a decade since she had seen him, so her memories were very vague. He had remarried twice since then, and busied himself with the sons from his second and third marriages. Tessa had somewhat assumed that he had forgotten her existence, which was quite fine. She liked her life, and she didn't want her father back in it.

  But he had come, and with Raoul Flambert. And Tessa had noted with deep disdain that the man had stripped the younger nuns with his eyes, just as he had seemed to devour her. He had been polite, courteous, and entirely proper. He hadn't spoken a word of English, though he was a guest in a hostile land, for England was on the brink of war with Spain and France. "A pretty creature, eh, mon ami?" Tessa's father had queried his friend—after inspecting Tessa himself. And Flambert had allowed a curl to slip into his lips. "Ah, tres jolie, Comte de la Verre. A beautiful young woman indeed." Tessa's father had frowned for a minute there. "Very young," he had informed Flambert. "Ah, but youth is beauty, is it not?" Flambert had asked, and Tessa had found herself filled with unease and revulsion. Once again, Flambert's eyes flicked up and down the length of her. She felt like shrinking within herself. But it was not long after that the men departed, and in the months that followed, Tessa, much to her relief, heard no more from her father. She loved England. She loved her vacations on her grandfather's estates just outside London, and she adored London itself, and the wonderful days when she went to serve the Princess Anne, heiress now to the crown of England upon the death of William III. Anne was gentle, devoted to her husband, kind to those around her, and eternally a romantic.

  Her father meant nothing to her. Tessa had imagined that life could go on for her as it always had. She would reside with her grandparents, serve the princess who would one day be queen, and flirt with the very handsome young lords and gentlemen who served William, but also realized that one day Anne would be queen. They amused Tessa. She was happy to listen to their sonnets and songs. Yet worldly matters did not much please her. A woman would soon sit on the throne of England, but it seemed that women were in little control of their lives, that despite this age of enlightenment, women were still all but bought and sold by their guardians—men—in the marriage game. Thanks to her delightfully temperate and gentle grandfather, Tessa was spared concern regarding the marital field. She and her grandfather had a wonderful, unspoken agreement on the subject.

  But then Charles II of Spain died, leaving no heir. Tessa had never imagined that such a thing could so direly affect her own life.

  It was to change it completely.

  Charles II had willed as his successor a grandson of Louis XIV of France. It was more than England and her allied enemies against the Sun King—Holland, Austria, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark—could tolerate. France had tremendous might, and a union of Spain and France created a threat that simply could not be tolerated by the neighboring nations. The French king was supporting the Pretender to the English throne, and not only that, but levying ruinous taxes on English goods. For months, Tessa trod carefully about the Princess Anne, watching with fear every evolvement in the rising tensions.

  On the very eve of war, the Comte de la Verre arrived with a large French delegation, going straight to King William and demanding the return of his daughter, since hostilities would so soon commence between the nations.

  Tessa was aware that her life could have little meaning to King William, and yet she threw herself on Anne's mercy to remain in England. The Princess Anne cried with her, but it was decided that when a nobleman—French, English, or other—demanded the return of a child, in the interests of all concerned, the child must be returned.

  Tessa soon found herself heavily escorted by her father's men—who surely knew she longed for nothing more than escape—and bade farewell to those who had so gently raised her.

  True realization of her fate touched her just as she was about to board the ship which would take her across the channel with a perfect stranger—her father. She turned, ready to bolt, and found herself facing several of his armed men again, and she knew that she would board the ship willingly—or tied and trussed.

  Although she hated her father then, she later discovered that Christian de la Verre was not a cruel man, but a man in the old mode of nobles, who considered himself gifted and superior by birth. He was lord of all that was his—including his children. He had three sons for whom to provide, and the one daughter, Tessa. Her father's current wife, Jeanne Louise, was not many years older than Tessa and seemed to despise her, no matter how often she granted Tessa her forced smile.

  Tessa kept out of her way.

  She begged her father to allow her to return to England, but events conspired to make that impossible.

  King William III died; the Princess Anne became Queen Anne, and her gentle husband became prince regent. In September 1702 Queen Anne began to give out commissions for piracy.

  Her father became incensed with the English. There wasn't a prayer that he would return Tessa to the place she considered home.

  After she had been with him for one year, he had summoned her to his desk, where he was seated with a number of his letters, and had informed her in a cool and distant tone that he had made a most advantageous marriage arrangement for her. Raoul Flambert, titled, wealthy, a noble with impeccable family lineage, an old friend of her father's and one well-favored by the king, had asked for her. Her father was now eager to see that she arrived upon his doorstep for a wedding to take place before Christmas, so Raoul might find his holiday enriched with the warmth of newfound love and marital bliss.

  There had been several long seconds when Tessa had simply stared at her father, unable to speak. Then she had, of course, spoken too swiftly. She had told her father that she wouldn't even think about marrying Flambert, that she considered the man old and disgusting and his interest in young girls completely unseemly. In saying that, she managed to completely offend her father, who was near Flambert's age, and did not consider himself at all old. Any chance of her talking her way out of the
situation ended then and there.

  But her determination not to marry Flambert did not end there. She made a plan to escape her father's mansion and return to England, which she still considered home, only to find herself physically returned by her father's servants, two giant peasant men who apologized profusely, yet needed their work with her father, and must therefore obey him.

  She had been absolutely humiliated when her father told her that children—daughters, most especially—must obey. And he had ordered her strapped to a chair and given her twenty harsh lashes himself upon her bare back. She had hated him then, and she had willed herself not to cry, no matter how great the pain.

  And when he had finished, she had assured him that she didn't think what he had dealt out would hold a candle to the misery of life with Flambert, and once again, her father had been deeply offended. In her room alone at last, she had cried again. And there she had begun to pray. "Don't let it happen, please, God! Send a miracle, I beg you! Let Father see the truth of his friend!"

  The more Tessa argued, the more her father insisted she needed to be wed, and wed to a strong man such as Raoul Flambert, one who could keep a firm and steady hand upon a young bride. Tessa had then assured her father that she would be miserable and wretched, and Flambert would not want to marry her. Flambert, her father assured her, had been warned, and did not care. He was ready to meet the challenge of such a young bride, and he would carefully tend as guardian, teacher, and mentor as well. There was nothing to fear.

  "But there will be a great deal to fear, Father!" Tessa had assured him. "For I will not say the marriage vows!"

  "Alas, my dear, I think, when the time comes, you will do so."

  "I will humiliate you with my tantrums, sire, I do so swear it!"

  "Then as your guardian and betrothed husband, Flambert will see that you are duly chastised." Then her father had slammed his fist upon the arm of his chair. "It is the English who have done this to you! A daughter's duty is to obey! You are nothing but an Anglo wildcat, Tessa, and I will be greatly pleased to visit in a few years and discover you to be a good and quiet wife to such a fine noble as Flambert!"