And Spotswood was here. The lieutenant governor! He would know—just as she knew!—that the Hawk and Lord Cameron were one and the same. And there would be no escape now. No escape at all. Roc had survived Logan and the fire just to hang!
“No!” she gasped in horror, staring at him.
“Skye—” he murmured.
“Ail right, my dear young friends,” Spotswood said, coming toward them. “I’m afraid I must interrupt you now—”
“No! No!” Skye cried. She held her husband tightly. “You don’t understand! You mustn’t take him—”
“But, my dear, I must—”
“No!” she cried.
“Skye …” Roc murmured.
But it was suddenly too much for her. She fought for reason; she fought for light. Darkness was overwhelming her. She clung to her husband, and his arms came around her. But it was not enough. She fell into his arms, and the world closed in darkness around her.
“My God, what’s happened to her!” Theo demanded, pushing forward.
“Nothing, Theo, nothing. And it seems that the lad has her well in hand. She’s fainted, Theo, and that’s all. And for the night that the poor thing has endured, it seems little enough!”
“I will take her to bed,” Roc said softly.
“But—” Theo sputtered.
“They’re married, Theo!”
Theo tried with dignity to adjust his ragged clothing. “Quite right, Alexander, quite right. It’s just that …”
“Quite right, and that’s that!” Alexander said. “Lord Cameron! I need a word with you as soon as she’s settled.”
When she woke up, it was light. The sun streamed in upon her and she rose up, amazed to discover that she was home.
Home. Cameron Hall.
She was dressed in a soft blue nightgown with lace at the collar and the cuffs and hem. Her hair was dried and soft and she was comfortable. She had been out a very long time.
She lay upon her husband’s bed, and the very sight of it brought her up, amazed. “Roc!” she cried out his name, but he was not with her, and she had known that he would not be. Spotswood would have arrested him for piracy by now. They would take him to the jail in Williamsburg, and as soon as the court met, they would try him.
And hang him.
“Oh, no!” She leaped out of the bed, and she was amazed that she could have been out so long, and so completely. It was the liquor they had made her drink, she thought. Her head was still pounding. She pushed up from the bed, and she stared about the room. How ironic! Now, at long last, she slept in her husband’s handsome bed. But he was not with her. The sun streamed into this place that he loved so much, and she was alone with it. She let her hand fall to her abdomen, and she thought of all the time that had passed since she had first encountered the Hawk, and she trembled. He had wanted an heir. Perhaps that was what she had left. Perhaps she could live to give him that which he had so desired, the son to carry on his name in this all-important land. “Please God, let it be that it is so!” she whispered.
Then she spun around, determined. She would not let the father hang so quickly, she could not! Her father would help her. Theo would testify that the Hawk had saved his life during the fire. There would be enough men to stand for the Hawk, oh surely.
She had to find her father, or the governor, or Peter, or someone. Ignoring her state of undress, she tore out of the bedroom and along the hallway with the portraits of the Cameron lords and ladies. She paused, and her heart beat fiercely. “I shall not let you down, I swear it! I will save him, I promise. I did not want to come here, that is true, but it’s my blood, too, now, you see. I think I’m to have his child, and besides, you see … I love him. With all my heart. He is my life, and this land is his passion, and therefore, it is mine.”
She was talking to portraits, she realized. But the Camerons looked down upon her, and she thought that they smiled their encouragement. The men with their silver eyes, the women with their knowing warmth and soft beauty.
She turned away from the portraits and ran down the elegant stairway. From the grand hallway she burst into the office.
Spotswood and her father were there. They were seated quite comfortably, lighting pipes, sipping coffee—out of fine Cameron cups.
Skye strode to the desk, facing Spotswood. “Where is he? I demand to know.” She spun around. “Father, you make him tell me where my husband is! I want to see him now. You may arrest him, but you’ll not hang him. I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you both tooth and nail until we are all nothing but blood. Father! He saved your life!”
“I know that, daughter—”
“And Alexander! You were all willing and eager for the Hawk to do your dirty work. The government of Virginia cannot interfere with the government of North Carolina, and so you didn’t mind seeing him attack other pirates in Carolina waters. Now I’m telling you, I demand to know where he is.”
Theo looked at Alexander, and Alexander looked at Theo.The lieutenant governor shrugged. “By the river, I believe. He mentioned a certain spot. It’s quite lovely and private. Down past the docks, beyond the graveyard. You’ll not see him if you don’t run down the slope by the old oaks.”
“What?” Skye murmured. “But—”
“Find him. Speak with him.”
Skye backed away from the desk. They had both gone mad, but Roc was out there somewhere. She could see him and touch him. She could cling tightly to him and tell him that there would be an heir to Cameron Hall. She could love him, before they could take him.
She stared at her father and the lieutenant governor, then she whirled around and raced out of the house.
“Milady!” Peter called to her, startled that she should be running out in her night attire. She ignored him. She burst from the house and into the day and down the slope. She saw the docks before her, and the family graveyard to the right, and she kept running upon the soft green grass. Her feet were bare, and she stumbled, but she didn’t care. She had to reach him.
“Roc!” she screamed. She raced far past the graveyard, and by the mound of oaks.
She saw him then. He was clean and bathed and handsomely dressed in fawn breeches and buckled shoes and a deep red frockcoat. His dark hair was unpowdered, but neatly queued. He rested a hand against a pine tree, and he looked out to sea.
Until he heard her call. He turned about, and his eyes came alight with a silver blaze, and his lazy, slow, sensual smile curved his lips. Perhaps he would have reached out to her. She didn’t know. She tripped and went stumbling down the slope of grass there, and fell at last into his arms.
“Skye!”
Her force nearly knocked them both over. He swept her into his arms, and down then upon the ground, in a bed of pine needles. He cradled her gently and searched her eyes while her fingers fell tenderly upon his clean-shaven cheeks. She gasped for breath, then kissed him. He arched his brow and brought his palm against her thundering heart. “My love—” he murmured.
“Aye, Roc, and I do love you!” she gasped. “I’ll not let them have you!”
“Them?” he inquired.
She could smell the sweet pine needles beneath her and the cleanliness of the river air. She felt both the sun and the shade of the trees, the birch and the oaks and the pines. She felt the searing warmth and sweet fire of the man, the silver blaze within his eyes. She held tightly to him. This was indeed his Eden. It was where his parents had come. It was a garden where a man could love a woman, and a woman love a man, far from the cares of the world.
“Oh, Roc!” she whispered. “We are, I think, I’m almost sure—”
“What?” he demanded, his arms tightening around her.
“We’re—we’re going to have a child.” His arms came like steel, warm and loving, and she spoke on quickly. “I don’t know whether Lord Cameron or the Hawk has fathered the babe, but Roc, I will raise him, I swear it, come what may! Yet I swear, my love, too, that I haven’t given up on his sire as yet—”
“
I should hope not!” Roc said indignantly. “Oh, my love, a babe, really?” The tenderness in his voice tore into her heart. It brought tears to her eyes.
“Really, I believe. Now, Roc—”
His kiss cut off her words. It was deep and sweeping and sensual, and it enveloped and enwrapped her in splendor and warmth. It filled her with sweet longing and desire, and left her trembling in his arms. When he rose above her, the tenderness was still with him. “My dear lady, bless you. With all of my heart, madame, I do love you. You believe that now, don’t you?”
“Yes, I believe you!” she whispered. He smiled, and reached to her gown, tugging upon the laces at the bodice. The material fell away and he lowered his head against her, taking her nipple deeply into his mouth and laving it with his teeth and tongue.
“Roc!” she cried out, tugging upon his hair. “Stop, please, we must talk.…”
He spoke huskily against her flesh. “We’ve a lifetime to talk!”
“No!” She tugged fiercely upon him, drawing him back up to face her. He was a handsome devil, she thought. Handsome, strong, seductive. She could not bear life without him now! “No, Roc, now listen to me. We must think. We must find you legal representation, the very best. And witnesses, the proper witnesses.”
He was nuzzling her breast once again. Sensations blazed into her, but she fought them all fiercely. “Roc, this is serious!”
He groaned.
“Roc, they’ll hang you!”
His eyes fell upon her, wicked and silver, and hungry like a gray wolf’s.
“If I am a condemned man, then love me, wife!”
“Roc! You mustn’t—you must listen to me. Roc—”
“Have you ever seen such a glorious place?” he murmured, and again he spoke against her flesh. He edged her gown from her shoulders, and his words and kisses fell against them, then he moved lower as he stripped her completely in the bower of pines. “It is Eden. Feel the breeze, love, upon your flesh. Like my touch, I swear it. Gentle always, soft sometimes, with heady passion at others. Feel where the air touches you where my lips have just lingered, the coolness against the heat. Hear the birds, my love? Sweet and never strident. Smell the earth, the verdancy, the flowers. Never so good as the sweet scent of you, never so provocative, yet always enticing.…”
“Stop!” she pleaded, catching his dark hair as he teased her belly with the hot tip of his tongue. Swallowing, seeking breath, she dragged him to her. She pressed her lips passionately to his, then drew away. Tears glazed her eyes. “I cannot! I will not let them hang you!”
His lashes fell, dark over his eyes. “They are not going to hang me, love.”
“What?” she cried. “Oh, Roc! You must not be overconfident because you are Lord Cameron!”
He paused then, and cradled her in his arms. He ran his palms over her naked breasts tenderly, and he thought that he had never seen her more beautiful, more gentle, than at this moment. The trees rocked their branches above. Her nightgown hovered in a soft blue swirl about her hips while the beauty of her throat and breasts and torso were bared to his eyes. Her hair cascaded all about her, sunlight, sunset. Her eyes were all teal, liquid with her love for him.
He had never felt more humble, and he trembled. He had never known what love could be. Now, it was his. It was more precious that life, limb, earth, or country. She was life. His life. Their child grew within her. Their future stretched before them. He had loved the land before; now it was everything. Now it would be shared.
“My God!” he whispered, and his fingers shook as he smoothed away her hair. “Skye, I love you. I cannot say it deeply enough. I love you.”
“I love you!” she whispered, and the tears still stung her eyes.
He smiled, holding her tight, cherishing and savoring the soft feel of her naked chest as he held her against his body. “I’m not going to hang, my love, because the lieutenant governor has been in on it all the time.”
“What!” Stunned, she broke away from him. He was reminded of the daring temptress who had fought him so fiercely on the deck of the Silver Messenger, the very first day he had seen her.
He nodded slowly, watching her flashing eyes. “I was asked to be a pirate, milady. I stole nothing. I tried to learn the plans of the real rogues at their hideaways, and I captured ships, but only my own ships, or imaginary ships, or ships that I captured from other pirates to send on home.”
“But—but—”
He lifted his hands. “Spotswood would deny it, of course. He is a servant of the Crown. But several years ago I had a ship taken and my crew was butchered, and I could not help but want to seek revenge. Alexander and I spent a night drinking and … the Silver Hawk was born.”
“But the place on Bone Cay—”
“I own it. The Camerons have owned it for at least fifty years.”
“Oh!”
“Love, I’m sorry! I could not tell you. You already despised the man you were to marry, and I had sworn to Alexander that I would never divulge the truth to anyone.”
“But Robert—”
“Robert Arrowsmith has always been one of my best friends. I have given him a plot of land connecting ours. He is going to become a gentleman planter now.”
“What of Mr. Soames and Señor Rivas and—”
He shrugged. “They like the Caribbean. And I have no intention of giving up my island. It holds wonderful memories for me, and can be fine to visit in the winter. The pardon you spoke of before has come through. Men in authority have gone to take control of New Providence. The Silver Hawk will seek a pardon, turn his property over to his deserving cousin—Lord Cameron—and then disappear into the pages of history.”
“Then you won’t—you won’t set sail again?” she whispered.
“Alas, no, my love. My pirating days are over. Jack is gone, and Logan is gone. One day Spotswood will have Blackbeard, but I haven’t the heart for that fight, and the lieutenant governor has decided that my usefulness to the Crown is over. I am a changed man, love! I swear it!”
“Oh!” she gasped.
He stroked her cheek, and laid her down upon the pines. “I love this place,” he whispered. “I want our son to grow here. I want it to be the finest estate in all Tidewater Virginia.”
“Ummm,” she murmured.
“Say something!” he implored her. “Will you mind so very much that the Hawk is not to hang?”
She shook her head. She stretched her arms around him and drew him close, loving the masculine hardness of his body as it pressed against hers on their bed of pines. “I’m glad he’s not to hang,” she whispered. “And since he is not …”
“Since he is not?”
“Then I demand that he love me here, in this Eden. Perhaps he is of no more use to the Crown, but his lady shall always demand his time, and his energy.”
“Ah, but the Hawk will be gone! ’Tis Lord Cameron who will give you his life and his love and his passion.”
She laughed with sweet delight and raked her fingers through his dark hair, drawing him close. “Perhaps. But perhaps my legal lord will always be the valiant pirate Hawk in my heart. And perhaps I will always lie with him now, forever, in this Eden.”
“Perhaps …”
“And then, perhaps, it matters not at all, for I love the man, you see. Whether he is the Hawk or the lord, the rogue or the noble gentleman, I love him. And would have him love me now.”
He smiled to her, and caught her lips, and rose above her, his eyes—silver eyes, dancing eyes, rogue’s eyes—alight with his passion.
“Gladly, milady, gladly,” he assured, and set forth with fire and passion and tenderness to prove to her the bold beguiling truth of his ardent assurance.
Epilogue
March 20, 1719
Lying beneath the oaks, Skye was half-asleep when Roc came upon her. He smiled down at his wife, for she looked beautiful and pure and childlike, with her hair all tousled about, and at the same time mature, for she was huge with their child—the bab
e was due any day.
“My love!” he murmured, sitting down beside her.
She jerked up and he laughed, smoothing back her hair.
“ ’Tis just me,” he assured her, and drew her close. He kissed her forehead. “No one is allowed in Eden with Eve except for Adam, you know.”
She smiled, and stretched lazily and then leaned against him, as content as a kitten. “How are things in Williamsburg? How is Father?” she asked. “What of the pirates?”
“Your father is fine and feisty as always,” he said. “The pirates …” He sighed. Spotswood had managed to get his hands on Blackbeard at last. There had been a battle at Ocracoke Island last fall, and Blackbeard had fallen.
His head, it was rumored, had been severed and hoisted up on the bow of Lieutenant Maynard’s ship for all to see. “Woe to all pirates!” was the message.
Well, Blackbeard had been a rogue and caught at it, and perhaps he had rightfully deserved to die, Roc thought. But in his own dealings with him, he had seen Blackbeard maintain a curious honor, and so he was sorry for the end of it in a way.
Skye squeezed his hand. “At least he was not captured and taken prisoner with the others!”
Men had been taken. They had been sent to the Williamsburg jail, and they had been tried on March 12. All but one gentleman—who had been able to prove himself a guest and no more on Blackbeard’s ship, the Adventurer—had been sentenced to hang.
“Aye. Well, it’s over now.”
“Is it?” Skye asked him.
He nodded, looking out to the James that swept by them, the very life of their land, their property, their estate, their future.
Their children’s future. Their destiny.
“Yes,” he said, drawing his wife close. “I think that it is over. I told you once that the Crown created pirates—Sir Francis Drake was a fine example. We warred with Spain, so the kings and queens cried, ‘Rob them blind!’ Then men began to forget that they should pirate only foreigners, the enemy. The islands gave the rogues bases. Now Woodes is cleaning up New Providence, and Ocracoke will never welcome pirates again. An age is coming to an end. The age of piracy. Maybe that was our age, my love. When the settlers arrived here last century, they had to survive against the Indians. They had to hold fast to the land. For us, it was the menace of the pirates. We had to endure, and survive. Who knows now what the future, what our children shall face? It’s all to God, isn’t it? Fate. And we can only pray that each generation will endure.”