The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance by Sharon Cullen Page A

merchant vessel rushed over, wringing his hands. His daughter stood back, eyes wide with shock. “Sir, if I may?” He spoke to Phin, yet his fearful gaze flickered toEmmaline.
    Phin nodded at the man pointing at Shamus, a soggy heap at Phin’s feet.
    “That man. He was protecting my daughter. She was afraid.” Again his gaze flew to Emmaline, before skittering away. “She was running. Not looking where she was going …” His voice trailed off and he looked over his shoulder at his daughter. “She was afraid,” he repeated. “Of pirates. We’ve heard what pirates can do to young girls.” He shot Phin a fearful look. “She was going to jump over.”
    Emmaline looked down at Shamus in disbelief. He was trying to save the girl from drowning? Not hurt her? Ashamed, she sank to her heels and rolled Shamus over. The wound pulsed bright red, mixing with the rain sluicing down on them, and turning the deck beneath him pink.
    She looked up at the captain. “Do you have a surgeon on board?”

    Nicholas fought the memories threatening to steal his sanity. He tried to concentrate on the voices above, to block the terrified cries from the plundered ship. But his resistance merely made matters worse. The dam broke and he saw nothing but that fateful day when his ship had been attacked. He’d been so horribly injured he could do nothing to save his men, and now he heard nothing but the sound of battle and the cries of the men he’d come to care for.
    He pressed his palms against his temples and ground his teeth. His thigh throbbed. His head ached. His hands sweat. The smell of burning cordite surrounded him. The pop of guns, the roar of cannons long in the past deafened him.
    He’d been in battle before. But those fights had been different. Each enemy had a purpose, a driving need. Each believed they were in the right, fighting for a cause they deemed worthy to die for.
    Pirates were driven by lust and greed. They’d been more than vicious. And they’d been unrelenting.
    He didn’t fear them. He’d faced death before and come out the winner, fully aware he might not be as lucky the next time. No, he didn’t fear them—he despised them. Despised their lack of honor, their lack of morals and ethics in a time when honor and morality was looked upon with favor.
    Nicholas wished with all his might he had the power to help the poor captain of the merchant vessel.
    He listened and waited and vowed his revenge on Lady Anne.

Chapter Eight
    Although they’d been planning on it, preparing for it as best they were able, when the gales hit, they hit hard.
    The wind whipped Emmaline’s long braid into her face. The spray of the sea stung her eyes.
    There was something strangely elemental about standing on the deck of a ship while Mother Nature threw her worst at you, and you stood tall and straight, daring her to duel.
    Crewmen struggled up the mizzenmast, the winds buffeting them. Before the full impact of the storm hit, Emmaline gave orders to reef the sails, hoping to outrun the worst of it. Now that the winds were upon them, and blowing far harder than she had anticipated, the storm sails were more a hindrance than a help and she’d ordered the crew to go bare poles.
    Climbing the rigging in these conditions was quite possibly the most dangerous thing a sailor could do. Emmaline watched, breath held as a few men clambered up the ropes. This was the part she hated the most about being a captain—giving orders that might lead to a crewman’s death.
    One of the men was barely a man, more a boy, but eager to prove himself. Too eager. He laughed at his counterparts as only an uncaring youth, unaware of his mortality, could. He reached for the next rope. His bare foot slipped and Emmaline pulled in a gasp, narrowing her eyes against the driving rain. The mizzen topgallant sail whipped around him, the ropes flogging him like the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails. His leg flailed, trying to find purchase on the next rope, and his