Page 22 of A Pirate’s Pleasure (Cameron Family #2)

March 20, 1719

L ying 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 babe 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.”

Skye touched his cheek. She started to smile, started to speak. “Oh!” she cried instead.

“What is it?”

She sighed, and flushed, and smiled again. “It’s quite all right. I mean, I think that it’s some time yet.”

“What?”

“Well, you remember, I met you when the age of pirates was flourishing! And you were an absolutely irresistible and ravishing pirate. And—”

“Skye!”

“Well, I believe it’s time for a certain ravishment or seduction—whichever it was!—to bear fruit.”

“The babe!”

“Yes!”

“Oh!”

He leaped to his feet and drew into his arms. He groaned slightly. “Well, you’re not as light as air at the moment!” he apologized.

“And I can walk perfectly well!”

“Not on your life, my love.”

He carried her to the house, and up the stairs, and to the bed they shared. Mattie was there, and Tara and Bess, and Peter hovered by the door with Davey and some of the others ready to run and fetch whatever might be required. Davey was sent for the doctor, then Mattie expelled Roc, too. “It’s a long, long time!” she assured him.

He paced the portrait gallery, and then he went out walking again, and he came down to the cemetery, and looked out over the tombstones. He walked over to those belonging to Jamie and Jassy, and he touched the cold stone, and he smiled. “I am mad!” He laughed aloud. “But it all came out so very well.” He paused. “Life is good. It is Eden. I—I thank you for this place.”

He decided that he was mad, smiled again, and turned around. He came back to the house, and he paused by the beautiful portrait of his great-great-grandmother, then he walked on again and went to his office down the stairs.

Robert Arrowsmith arrived, and drank with him.

He had several snifters of brandy, and smoked several pipes.

Then he heard one cry, and then another, and he glanced toward Robert, and he tore up the stairs, two at the time. He burst into the room, where Mattie was just swaddling the babe. Roc looked at her expectantly. Mattie smiled and handed him the squirming bundle.

“A…?” he inquired.

“What else, Lord Cameron? A boy.”

“A boy! Wonderful. But don’t you what-else-me, Mattie! A girl would have been just as welcome!”

“Well, sir…”

“What?”

“I’m glad to hear that, for the second is a little girl, wee and fine and golden-haired.”

“Two!”

“Twins, Roc!” Skye called from the bed. He hurried over to her. She was pale, but she smiled beautifully, and the happiness that radiated from her was glorious. He knelt down beside her and he kissed her hand. Mattie brought their son over, while Bess carried over their scarcely bathed daughter.

They inspected their infants, hesitant, curious, laughing. Adoring the infants, more deeply in love than ever with one another. Mattie and the girls left them alone. The babies fussed, and Skye, laughing and awkward, tried to nurse them both. Roc helped, trading infants while she traded breasts, and together they laughed again, until he saw that her eyes were closing, and that she was exhausted.

“I’ll call for Mattie and Tara,” he assured her, kissing her forehead.

She nodded sleepily, and he called to the servants, and then it was Mattie’s turn to cluck proudly over the newborns. Roc came back beside his wife and sat down, cradling her hand. She was nearly asleep. Clean and bathed and beautiful after the ordeal, she was again sweetly innocent and pure to him. It was hard to recall her as the passionate vixen who had come to his arms to create their marvelous new additions, but he knew that he would meet the vixen again. He kissed her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open, teal, beautiful.

“I’ll let you sleep. I’ll send a message to your father. I’m sure he can be here by tonight.”

She nodded, and squeezed his hand. He kissed her again and stood. Her eyes opened again, devilish slits. “Make sure you tell them we have twins,” she whispered.

“Them.”

She winked. “Jamie and Jassy. I think that they’d like to know.”

He laughed, and said indignantly, “My love, one day our children’s children will live here. In the world we work to build year by year.”

“And one of our great-great-great-grandchildren, a handsome lad, a rogue with dancing silver eyes, will come by us, and whisper of what has come!” she said.

“Vixen!” he teased her, and kissed her again.

“It takes one to love a rogue,” she assured him demurely.

And he laughed, and it turned out that he didn’t leave so quickly after all, for she was not so tired that she could resist being taken into his arms and giving him a kiss of infinite tenderness and passion and promise.

A kiss…to the future.