Devil of the High Seas, page 1
DEVIL OF THE HIGH SEAS
PIRATES OF KING’S LANDING
BOOK III
LAUREN SMITH
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Smith
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-958196-13-7 (e-book edition)
ISBN: 978-1-958196-14-4 (trade paperback edition)
PROLOGUE
1735 Cornwall, England
Gavin Castleton adjusted his bottle-green frock coat and glanced about the crowded ballroom. His parents were occupied with guests and would not look for him for a little while. He quickly escaped the crush of dancers currently swirling around the floor and slipped out a back door into the gardens of his family’s grand manor house, Castleton Hall.
Strains of music drifted through the perfumed gardens, lending the spring night an air of magic and romance that even he, a young man of nineteen, could appreciate. His eyes searched the twilight and caught a glimpse of shimmery silken skirts vanishing around a tall row of hedges.
She was here. She had come as he had asked. His heart leapt with joy. Tonight . . . tonight he would ask her the question that would change both their lives forever.
Gavin’s heart pounded with excitement as he pursued the woman who had owned his soul for the last two years.
“Charity,” he whispered as he stalked his love. This was a game they had played many times since they were seventeen. Chases and kisses in the garden. He heard a soft giggle as he rounded yet another hedge, glimpsing her skirts disappearing once more around a corner of the elaborate hedgerows. The long, flowing train of her sack-back gown was tempting him. He wanted to catch her, to get his hands under those skirts, just as he had done so many times before.
“Got you!” he gasped in delight as he caught her from behind. Charity chuckled and then moaned as he placed soft kisses upon her neck.
“Oh yes . . . please . . . yes,” she encouraged as he began to pull up her voluminous skirts. “Please, take me here, Griffin.”
Gavin froze, his hands falling from her skirts. “Griffin?” His head began to fill with an odd buzzing sound.
Charity spun in his arms, her lovely face a mask of confusion and then shame. “Gavin? I didn’t—I thought you were . . .”
“I know who you thought I was,” he said softly, as his heart fractured in half. “How long have you preferred my brother to me?”
Her brows arched up in confusion. “How long?”
“How long has Griffin been courting you?”
“Almost the same length of time that you’ve been courting me. You and I never agreed to be—”
“To be true to one another?” Gavin finished, his tone icy now as he felt like a stranger in his own skin.
“You never asked me to be, Gavin. You haven’t even proposed yet.” Charity frowned at him. “I will not let you make me feel guilty. I have a right to be courted by anyone until I accept a proposal.”
Gavin had been planning to ask her to marry him tonight, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Not now.
“And my brother? Has he asked you to marry him?” Gavin demanded.
“I was going to this evening.” Griffin’s voice came from behind them. Gavin’s twin brother was younger than him by a mere six minutes, and they were all but identical in appearance. Only someone who knew them well could see the minute differences in their features.
“So, what’s it to be, my lady?” Gavin asked Charity, unable to keep the contempt from his voice. He loved his brother fiercely, but this . . . this felt like a betrayal. He had been the first to meet Charity two years ago when her family had moved here from London. It had been love, wild love. She wasn’t simply beautiful. She was bold, carefree, intelligent. She’d made him want to be a better man, someone worthy of marrying her. He had told Griffin the day he’d met her that he would marry her someday. He’d always known Charity was going to be his. But oh, how wrong he had been.
“I . . .” She looked between them, her eyes pooling with tears. He knew her well enough to know that those tears were genuine. He could see in her face that now she realized her actions had torn apart the bond of brothers, and she regretted it.
“Oh, Gavin,” she whispered, and he knew then that he was not the one she would choose. He was not the one she would spend her life with.
Gavin shifted his gaze from her face to his brother’s. Griffin looked stricken, as if he could feel the pain tearing through Gavin’s soul. As twins, they had shared a thousand secrets between them and had always been able to sense each other’s feelings.
“Brother, wait—” Griffin began.
“No,” Gavin snapped. “No, Griffin. No.” He turned and fled. He could not stay and see them together without his heart shattering any further. It felt as though a cannonball had blasted through his chest. His very soul was obliterated. He staggered back toward the house. He avoided the ballroom and the merry guests as he rushed up to his bedchamber. He slammed the door and leaned back against it, trying to control the horrible realization that now presented itself to him.
Charity would marry Griffin, and they would live here . . . or perhaps at Meadow Cross Cottage, but they would be here all the same. Gavin would someday take his father’s title as the Earl of Castleton, but that title and its privileges were nothing in the face of living without the woman he loved.
Leave . . . The single word whispered dangerously in the back of his mind.
Leave . . . Never look back . . .
Could he do that? Could he abandon his parents and his twin? If it meant escaping the pain in his chest now, what choice did he have?
Without another thought, he fetched a traveling case and began to fill it with clothing before he emptied a box of coins into a leather pouch and tied it to his belt.
When he opened his bedchamber door, he found his brother standing there, his hand raised as if to knock.
Griffin halted at the sight of him clutching the travel case of belongings. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes.” It was the only word he could manage.
“I didn’t want to love her,” Griffin said, equally at a loss for words.
“But you love her anyway,” Gavin said.
“At first, I think I loved her because you loved her. I suppose that’s because we’re twins. But then I began to love her because of my own heart’s desires. I told her tonight that she should choose you, take the title of countess, and live here. It is what she deserves.”
“And did she agree?” Gavin knew the answer when Griffin’s face fell.
“She still chose me.”
“Then take her and the bloody title,” Gavin said, his tone sharp. “Take it all. I am dead to you, brother. Take everything, because I have nothing left.”
“Gavin, please. That is ridiculous. I cannot take the title even if I wished to, which I don’t,” he shot back.
“If I’m considered dead, Father will still have his heir to the title. You will never see me again.” He pushed past his twin to leave the room, but then paused, his voice softening. “Tell Mother I love her, and Father too. Tell them I’m sorry and that the better son will stay here and be the heir they need.”
Griffin caught his arm when he tried to leave again.
“Gavin, no matter what happens between us, this will always be your home. Always.”
I love you too, brother. Always. But I cannot stay with a broken heart.
This time Griffin didn’t stop him as Gavin slipped away. Soon he was gone from his home and headed toward the sea and the uncertain future that awaited him. Thunder rumbled in the distance, signaling an approaching storm.
CHAPTER 1
1742 – Seven years later
Cornwall, England
There was nothing worse than being the little sister of a notorious pirate.
Josephine Greyville hid in the shadows of the ballroom, watching her brother, Dominic, and his bride, Roberta, as they danced. Envy and longing struck her like a bolt fired by a powerful crossbow.
Josephine wanted to have a life of adventure like Dominic. He had gone to sea for fourteen years and had seen the world, and according to their mother, he’d caused a fair bit of trouble too . . . being a notorious pirate, after all. Adventure was all Josephine had ever wanted . . . and something she could never have. Gentleborn ladies could not run away to sea and become pirates.
At eighteen, she was more than old enough to marry and yet too young to experience life the way she wished. And she was a woman. Her twin brother, Adrian, had far more opportunities than she ever would because she had to wear skirts and play the part fate had assigned to her as an earl’s daughter.
Not that she minded a lovely dress, like the green silk ballgown she wore now. The cream panels of her underskirt and the gold bodice embroidered with swirling patterns were exquisite. She felt beautiful when she wore such gowns, but what did beauty matter when life was without excitement and joy? Men simply didn’t understand how trapped a woman could feel in a life restricted to domestic activities with no chance to do anything else.
Already her life felt as though it was ending. Tonight she was at the fine estate of the handsome Earl of Castleton, where she was to be presented to him as his future bride.
“There you are, my little love.” Her mother, Lucia, had discovered Josephine’s hiding place behind a Grecian statue. Lucia was a wonderful mother, a fiery Spanish beauty who held her own against her dashing husband, Aaron, Josephine’s father, the Earl of Camden.
“Hello, Mother,” Josephine sighed.
Her mother caught her chin and turned Josephine to face her. “What is it? You look like you’ve been crying.”
She had, but she didn’t want to admit it. She gently pulled away from her. “I’m all right.”
“Your father has spoken to Lord Castleton, and the engagement has been settled. Your dowry has also been agreed upon. I thought you might like to dance with Lord Castleton now that the papers have been signed.”
“Must I go through with this?” she asked in a desperate whisper.
Her mother’s brown eyes softened. “Lord Castleton is young and handsome, but he is also a good man, my little love. He has been a good neighbor to us for many years, and he is lonely. This is a good match, better than anyone you would find in London. When you marry him, you’ll live here, just beside our home, so Father and I will be close by, and you will be free to visit us and bring the grandchildren as well.”
Children? She was too young to think of children and settling down.
“Come and dance with your betrothed.” Lucia gently extricated Josephine from her hiding place and escorted her to a tall man in a fine burgundy frock coat who was watching his guests dance.
Lord Castleton was undoubtedly a handsome man. At twenty-six, he was the master of one of the wealthiest estates along the coast of Cornwall. His family and hers had shared a border for more than a century. With warm brown eyes and rich brown hair pulled back into a queue and tied with a burgundy ribbon, Castleton was the sort of man every woman would dream of marrying. His features had been perfectly carved by envious angels, but a hint of a tragic air hung about him. She knew he had been married as a younger man to a woman he had loved. She had perished in childbirth, along with the son she’d been carrying, and he had not married again. It moved her heart in his direction, even though this life was not the one she wanted.
“Lord Castleton, I have found her,” Lucia said with a warm chuckle. “She was hiding behind a statue in the corner.”
“Mother!” Josephine hissed.
Lord Castleton had a bemused smile on his lips as he bowed over Josephine’s hand.
“I hope that I’m not so frightening as all that?” There was a teasing in his eyes that eased the flutter of nerves inside Josephine. His lips were warm on her knuckles, and she wished she could fall in love with him, live in this beautiful house and raise beautiful children with him.
But no matter how hard she wished for it, it didn’t come true.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Josephine nodded. One could not refuse a gentleman a dance, certainly not one she was soon to marry.
Lord Castleton tucked her arm in his and escorted her to the center of the ballroom. The quartet of musicians had just finished a song and were whispering, their powdered wigs bent as they spoke to one another. Then, as if deciding upon the next song, they raised their bows and began to play a lovely tune. Castleton spun her in his arms as the dance began, and she found she was able, briefly, to forget her fate. She passed by Dominic and Roberta as she twirled in Castleton’s arms, and her older brother winked at her.
She adored Dominic and was so glad he was finally home. She and Adrian had been mere babes when Dominic had run away to sea. They had been too young to truly remember him, but they’d grown up with stories of him their entire lives. He had only been fourteen when he’d left, and he’d become one of the fiercest pirates of this new age. Not that Josephine or her family had known that about him until last year. To the rest of the world, he had been missing for almost fifteen years. Her parents had been brokenhearted every one of those years during his absence.
She would never forget that fine spring day last year when he’d come through the front door of their home. She’d taken one look at the darkly handsome man and had seen her long-lost brother. She’d flung herself into his arms, so glad to have him home. Her father had shared Dominic’s tale with her, but Josephine knew that he had left many of the details out because of her supposedly delicate ears. Adrian knew more than she did about Dominic’s life as a pirate, and it was the first time in their shared lives as twins that he had refused to tell her everything he knew.
Josephine had always been interested in pirates. As a daughter of Cornwall, she had the sea in her blood. She knew all about Blackbeard, Kidd, Bonnet, and other infamous pirates of the golden age, perhaps even more than Adrian did, but discussing pirates with other young ladies over tea was frowned upon, to say the least.
Castleton’s voice intruded upon her straying thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”
“Pirates,” she replied before she’d given her response proper thought.
She bravely met his gaze, expecting some kind of reproach, but his eyes only sharpened with curiosity.
“Indeed? And what about them holds your rapt attention?”
They continued to dance, and she bit her lip before responding. “They have grand adventures in faraway places.” That was safe enough of an answer. She wasn’t about to confess that what she truly envied was their freedom. Oh, to have the freedom to live outside the authority of others . . .
“You remind me of someone I loved long ago. They were fascinated with pirates and stories of buried treasure as well.” Castleton smiled, the expression somehow enhanced by his sorrow.
“Was that your first wife?” she dared to ask.
“No, my brother.”
The music ended, and she stumbled. “You have a brother?” Had she known that Castleton had a brother? She racked her memory but couldn’t seem to recall having ever been told that. She had never met Castleton’s brother, and no one had ever mentioned him to her. She was quite certain of that.
“I did. He’s been gone for seven years now.” Castleton’s tone was heavy with old remembered pain. “Come, let me escort you to dinner.”
And just like that, the discussion of his brother ended, and she didn’t dare press him on it, though she did guess that if by “gone” he meant “dead.”
The evening’s festivities turned to the dining hall, which seated thirty guests at a large pair of tables. Wine flowed freely and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, everyone except Josephine. She had no appetite and quietly slipped away from the dining hall, making some excuse as to feeling a little ill.
She wandered through the candlelit corridor and paused by a tall window that overlooked the drive leading up to the house.
Lightning suddenly illuminated the world outside, and she stepped back from the glass at the blinding flash. Her heart leapt into her throat at the violent crash of thunder that followed an instant later. It was only a storm. She liked storms, but that crash had been very close to the house.
