The search for a lost jewel leads to love on the high seas.
In 1813, with America embroiled in war with England, the search to recover a lost jewel and save her family's Virginia plantation sends Raven De Lys to New Orleans, where the Creole code of honor is threatened by an emerging American way of life and cannons of war reverberate throughout the countryside. The path to the jewel leads her on a dangerous game of cat and mouse across the high seas and into the arms of Dominique Sauvinet, the notorious pirate who holds the jewel and her fate in the palm of his hand. Can their love survive a risky game of charades that proves not everyone is who they seem, and a murderous pirate's thirst for revenge?
Excerpt
“What do you want?” she gasped.
“I leave New Orleans in the morning,” he said. “I thought you might send me off with a fond farewell.”
Cautiously, she replied, “Why should I?”
“Because I damn near got myself killed today thanks to you. That’s right,” he went on in response to her mouth dropping open. “It was you who suggested that we do the honorable thing, remember?”
“I never meant for you to nearly kill each other with pistols.”
“Would you have preferred foils?”
“You’re insufferable,” she hissed.
“That’s the way things are done here, my sweet. Anything is an excuse for a duel. A political argument, a difference of opinion.” His look hardened in the darkness. “Even a quarrel between rival lovers.”
Raven sucked in her breath at his audacity. “Is that what you think Paul is to me?”
“You certainly showed him enough attention today. Or was that just friendly concern?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations. What are you doing here, anyway? I told you, I don’t want to speak to you.”
“I know what you said, and I want to know the reason for this sudden turnabout.”
“The nerve of you coming here like a thief in the night demanding explanations from me, when I am the one who is owed an explanation.”
“For what?”
Stubborn pride prevented her from admitting that she was wounded over what she witnessed in Marcel’s courtyard. “You lied to me. You said you found Toby.”
“I did.”
“Then where is he?”
“I didn’t say I brought him with me, only that I found him.”
“Oh, you’re a vile man. You tricked me into…into…” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the intimacies they had shared.
“As I recall, we had a bargain. I was simply on the receiving end. Although, if I am any judge, and I think I am, you appeared to get some, shall we say, enjoyment, out of it. My compliments, beauty. You were born for it.”
Detesting that deep mocking tone, she demanded, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you were made for loving, Raven. For the feel of a man touching you and kissing you and burying himself deep inside of you. Don’t look so shocked. It’s a rare treat to find a woman who takes to it with such exuberance.”
“What shocks me is your presumption that whatever exuberance you think I exhibited will ever be repeated.”
He rose from the bed and walked to the window, where he moved the curtain aside with a finger and peered outside. “I have just bestowed upon you a very high compliment, my sweet, and here you are, ranting at me like I am the lowest slug alive.”
“You told me you found Toby,” she persisted.
He responded wearily, “And I did find him.”
“Where is he?”
“Ah, now if I tell you that, you might get it in your pretty little head to go after him yourself. You do have a reckless streak which, I might add, I find quite charming. But as resourceful as you are, Raven, this is far too dangerous for you to get involved.”
“You’re just saying that to frighten me,” she charged.
He turned away from the window and leveled a long look at her from across the room. “The marshes of Barataria are frightening.”
“Barataria? It’s true, then. The pirates have him.”
“Locked in a barracoon. Now do you see why I cannot let you go after him?”
“But someone must.”
“And someone will, but it won’t be you. Now, like I said, I leave in the morning.”
“For Natchez?” she questioned suspiciously.
“Yes. And while I’m gone, I want you to stay away from Barataria.”
“As it happens, it behooves me to remain in New Orleans.”
“Oh yes,” he drawled. “Broussard. Are you planning to hold a vigil at his bedside?”
“I see no reason to tell you of my plans.”
“I hear Broussard makes no secret of his dislike for Americans,” he noted. “Yet he appears to like you well enough. Maybe even a little too well.”
“That’s because he thinks I’m French.”
He lifted a dark brow at her. “And why does he think that?”
“Because that is what he was told.”
“By whom?”
“By D’Arcy. If you must know, he thinks I am D’Arcy’s niece.”
He chuckled softly with amusement. “What a little Messalina you are. First, a widow, although we both know the truth of that. And now D’Arcy’s niece, and French to the bargain, with the most delightful Virginia accent I’ve ever heard. I’m afraid to ask what’s next.”
“That, Monsieur, is none of your business.”
“Oh, Monsieur, it is now? You were not so formal the last time I was here.”
Raven’s muscles tensed at the reminder of how easily she had surrendered to him. “I made an unfortunate mistake. An error in judgment. You can be certain it will not happen again.”
For a moment the mocking humor fled from his eyes, leaving them bare with confusion. “What is it, Raven? Why have you suddenly turned so disagreeable? I told you I would bring Toby back to you, and I shall.”
She could not bring herself to speak about what she had witnessed in Marcel’s courtyard, feeling foolish enough for having thought herself in love with the heartless rogue. Why humiliate herself further by admitting how badly his betrayal had wounded her?
“I’ll tell you what it is,” she said in an angry whisper, careful to keep her voice down so as not to awaken D’Arcy. “Not only must I find Dominique Sauvinet by myself, but now it appears I’ll have to find Toby myself as well. And if you think—”
“Hold it!” His palm came up to silence her. “What’s this about finding Dominique Sauvinet?”
“Just as I said. I must find him.”
Stunned, he asked, “What on earth for?”
She hesitated, not daring to tell him any more when she had already revealed too much. “I just have to, that’s all.”
“That’s not all,” he said roughly. “You have no business with him. Do you know what kind of man he is? What he is capable of? I won’t have you traipsing after some privateer.”
“You won’t have it? Just who do you think you are, telling me what you won’t have? I think you should leave. Our business with each other is finished.”
His golden eyes danced over her like tiny lanterns gleaming out of the darkness. In a cold and dangerous voice, he replied, “Nay, beauty, our business is just beginning.”
This is a sentimental and epic story about a young man, injured in the Viewnam War, who returns to Dallas, Texas, in 1964, and begins rebuilding his life. Set against the rock and roll era of the early 1960’s, when casual sex and recreational drugs w
