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 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!”
Menhadbeen 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, theAdventurer—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 metyouwhen 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!”
