The Ravishing Rees (Pirates of Britannia Book 10)

  The Ravishing Rees

  A Pirates of Britannia World Novel

  Rosamund Winchester

  About the Book

  Born into a murky legacy, Robert “Robbie” Bowlin lives a life of danger, fleshly pleasure, and thievery—never once forgetting about the father who’d died, rambling about ‘that bastard Rees’. When Robbie discovers something that compels him to Wales, he is sure his answers are within reach. But his search for the truth of his heritage brings him to the brink of death when the ship he’s sailing on goes down in a storm.

  Glynnis Rees washed her hands of the Rees family long ago—but best laid plans often fail. When a ravishing, dark-haired stranger washes up on her beach, she takes him in, only to realize he looks too much like those Rees’ she’d damned to hell.

  But she just can’t turn him away, not when everything within her yearns for his touch…his kisses…his heart.

  Robbie can’t believe his luck when he awakens in the bed of the most beautiful and infuriatingly stubborn woman he’s ever met. Though happy to seduce the widow, something within him wants more. She is a siren, enchanting him, making him want things he could never have. Suddenly, Robbie is thrust into a world of piracy and smuggling—and into a fiery passion with a woman even the Ravishing Robbie cannot tame.

  When danger rides in on a dark tide, Robbie and Glynnis must battle to survive the storm. But can two wayward hearts find solid ground when everything around them is sinking?

  This is a romantic and sultry tale of love and family from debut author, Rosamund Winchester.

  Copyright

  Text copyright by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Pirates of Britannia Connected World publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by DragonMedia Publishing, Inc. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Pirates of Britannia connected series by Kathryn Le Veque and Eliza Knight remain exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kathryn Le Veque and/or Eliza Knight, or their affiliates or licensors.

  All characters created by the author of this novel remain the copyrighted property of the author.

  THE RAVISHING REES © 2018 Rosamund Winchester. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented) without prior written permission by the author. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, and punishable by law.

  THE RAVISHING REES is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and or are used fictitiously and solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Kim Killion @ The Killion Group, Inc.

  Edited by Lynne Pearson

  Published by DragonMedia, Inc.

  PO Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Legend of the Pirates of Britannia

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Rosamund Winchester

  Excerpt from THE SEA DEVIL

  Excerpt from SEA WOLFE

  Excerpt from STOLEN BY STARLIGHT

  To my nemesis, the sea. You are beautiful, and you are vicious. I live in fear and awe of you.

  Acknowledgments

  I absolutely must thank Kathryn Le Veque and Eliza Knight for inviting me to take part in the amazing, heart pounding world of the Pirates of Britannia. I am honored to write this book as part of this series. A huge thanks to Kim Killion for the gorgeous cover, to Lynne Pearson for the spectacular editing, and to all my readers who’re willing to take a chance on pirate romance.

  Legend of the Pirates of Britannia

  In the year of our Lord 854, a wee lad by the name of Arthur MacAlpin set out on an adventure that would turn the tides of his fortune, for what could be more exciting than being feared and showered with gold?

  Arthur wanted to be king. A sovereign as great as King Arthur, who came hundreds of years before him. The legendary knight who was able to pull a magical sword from stone, met ladies in lakes and vanquished evil with a vast following who worshipped him. But while that King Arthur brought to mind dreamlike images of a roundtable surrounded by chivalrous knights and the ladies they romanced, MacAlpin wanted to summon night terrors from every babe, woman and man.

  Aye, MacAlpin, king of the pirates of Britannia would be a name most feared. A name that crossed children’s lips when the candles were blown out at night. When a shadow passed over a wall, was it the pirate king? When a ship sailed into port in the dark hours of night, was it him?

  As the fourth son of the conquering Pictish King Cináed, Arthur wanted to prove himself to his father. He wanted to make his father proud, and show him that he, too, could be a conqueror. King Cináed was praised widely for having run off the Vikings, for saving his people, for amassing a vast and strong army. No one would dare encroach on his conquered lands when they would have to face the end of his blade.

  Arthur wanted that, too. He wanted to be feared. Awed. To hold his sword up and have devils come flying from the tip.

  So, it was on a fateful summer night in 854 that, at the age of ten and nine, Arthur amassed a crew of young and roguish Picts and stealthily commandeered one of his father’s ships. They blackened the sails to hide them from those on watch and began an adventure that would last a lifetime and beyond.

  The lads trolled the seas, boarding ships and sacking small coastal villages. In fact, they even sailed so far north as to raid a Viking village in the name of his father. By the time they returned to Oban, and the seat of King Cináed, all of Scotland was raging about Arthur’s atrocities. Confused, he tried to explain, but his father would not listen and would not allow him back into the castle.

  King Cináed banished his youngest son from the land, condemned his acts as evil and told him he never wanted to see him again.

  Enraged and experiencing an underlying layer of mortification, Arthur took to the seas, gathering men as he went, and building a family he could trust that would not shun him. They ravaged the sea as well as the land—using his clan’s name as a lasting insult to his father for turning him out.

  The legendary Pirate King was rumored to be merciless, the type of vengeful pirate who would drown a babe in his mother’s own milk if she didn’t give him the pearls at her neck. But with most rumors, they were mostly steeped in falsehoods meant to intimidate. In fact, there may have been a wee boy or two he saved from an untimely fate. Whenever they came across a lad or lass in need, as Arthur himself had once been, they took them into the fold.

  One ship became two. And then three, four, five, until a score of ships with blackened sails roamed the seas.

  These were his warriors. A legion of men who adored him, respected him, followed him, and, together, they wreaked havoc on the blood ties that had sent him away. And generations upon generations, country upon country, they would spread far and wide un
til people feared them from horizon to horizon. Every pirate king to follow would be named MacAlpin, so his father’s banishment would never be forgotten.

  Forever lords of the sea. A daring brotherhood, where honor among thieves reigns supreme, and crushing their enemies is a thrilling pastime.

  These are the pirates of Britannia, and here are their stories….

  Prologue

  Castle Heathmark

  Leicester County, England

  1418 A.D.

  Sir Ioan Bowlin, revered knight of the Homme du Sang, peered down at the pale, ravaged face of the man he’d called “father” for more than thirty years. The man who’d taught him to ride, to shoot a bow, to swing a sword. The man who’d brought him his first comely maiden and plied him with wine until he he’d grown drunk enough to tup her—though clumsily done. The man who’d shown him what it meant to be a protector, a man of honor, a man of God. The man, even now, staring into the ceiling of his dark, foul-smelling bedchamber, had been his idol, the one he’d looked up to, the man who’s pride he’d wanted to earn…

  The man was a liar.

  “I meant to tell you when you reached your majority…” the man rasped, his voice nigh lost to the coughs sapping the life from his frail body. “But, by then, you were already bound for knighthood. And once you came home…you were already beguiled by Mary. I did not want to burden you with the truth when you were just married. If I had told anyone about the circumstances of your birth, you would have been cut out like a black mark—Mary’s father would not have agreed to the match. Do you not see? I did it for you!” His voice shrill, the man who had called himself “father” began hacking, his frail body shaking with each cough.

  Turning away to pace the room, Ioan couldn’t begin to bring his thoughts to rights. There was just too much to digest…

  Stolen women, abduction, pirates, smugglers, ransom…

  “What you are saying is madness!” he cried, throwing his hands in the air, frustration moving him as a puppeteer would. “My own mother, a bride stolen by pirates!”

  The man in the bed wheezed then coughed great shuddering coughs that nearly threw him from the bed. At the man’s side in an instant, Ioan helped him to take a sip of water.

  “Father…” The word now seemed false, like a hideous lie burning on his lips. “What am I to believe? None of this makes sense,” he said, disbelief tainting his tone. “Why did Mother not speak of this?”

  Picturing his mother, Lady Ilone, as she was before the cough took her—tall, lithe, strong, and fierce—he couldn’t imagine anyone ever daring to take her from her husband.

  “She was proud. She feared that if you knew of what happened to her, you would be ashamed of her and of yourself.” The man’s face grew even paler—if that were possible, and his gaze lost its focus. “She loved you, and she loved your father. But when the pirates stole her from her wedding night, she never thought to see her true love again.” Another coughing fit racked his body, and Ioan could naught but watch the man who raised him struggle to breathe. “When I found her begging in the streets of Liverpool, and she’d told me of her plight; how she’d floated for days and nights on a bit of driftwood until a fisherman found her… I knew the Lord had brought her to me. We married—and when she birthed you, I’d never known such happiness. I did what I could to make her comfortable here, and over the years I came to love her, but…” His voice trailed off as a sadness cloaked his expression. “She only ever loved your father.”

  Ioan let those words fill him with a sense of betrayal—his own mother had remained faithful to the man who let her be stolen from his bed. That man deserved only scorn. The urge to spit had bile coating his tongue, but the man’s next words gave him pause.

  “She loved you, too—all of you children—and the fact that I cannot rightly pass the title to you makes my heart break,” the man continued, a pink flush rising into his cheeks, and a harsh light crackling in his eyes.

  “If that bastard Rees hadn’t stolen Ilone, she’d never have jumped overboard to escape. She never would have broken my heart. And you, Ioan, you would have been raised by a father who could have claimed you as his own. But now…”

  Ioan understood without the man completing his thought. As the son of no one, he couldn’t inherit the title of Earl of Heathcombe. That title would pass to the first actual son and heir, his brother—nay, half-brother—Braydon. Once the man before him died, Ioan would inherit nothing, would have nothing but what was on his back, on his horse, and in the sheath at his side. And Mary…what would she say when she heard they had to abandon the home they had built at Heathcombe? She’d only just birthed their son, Robert.

  “I understand, and I will not stand in the way. Braydon can have it,” Ioan uttered, numbness stealing the heat from his blood. “I do wish to know, though… What was my father’s name?”

  The man squinted at him as if he hadn’t heard Ioan speak but after a few heart beats— “I do not know. Your mother…she never said; she only spoke of him in her prayers, whispered conversations between herself and God. I always felt like a cuckold, the man who’d turned her into an unfaithful woman…”

  “Why did you not return her to her husband—my father?”

  This time, the man’s face turned a hideous purple. “Do you think me so selfish that I would keep her from the man who was rightfully bound to her? Before your mother escaped the pirate ship, the pirate—Rees—told her that her husband was dead.”

  Ioan felt the kick of disappointment square in his chest. So…he would never know his true sire. Would never know if he had a true family somewhere. It was ridiculous to feel such loss over a family he hadn’t known he had until five minutes ago. But…the pain was real, agonizing. It gutted him as nothing ever had.

  I will make Rees pay for this…

  The man stared up at him, his dull eyes wide. “But what of you, what will you do?”

  “I will find Rees…” he answered, his tone cutting off the rest of the conversation. And as he sat there, watching the man breathe in shallow gasps, he could focus on only that moment; watching the man he called “father” pass through the gates of Heaven.

  Within two hours, Argus Bowlin, Earl of Heathcombe, died.

  Chapter One

  The Cantankerous Cock

  Dockside in Cobh, Ireland

  1443 A.D.

  “That bastard Berks better not have been lying,” Bruce “the Braw” Bolton grumbled into his fifth mug of ale.

  Robbie tapped his finger against the rim of his first mug, the amber brew still more than half way up the glass. He didn’t like letting the drink dull his senses, especially not when there was business to complete. And cutthroats eying his purse.

  “I trust Mortimer and Scofield,” Robbie intoned, his gaze pinned to the door across the crowded dockside pub. It was filled to the brim with smelly sailors, buxom wenches, and men who looked like they’d rather kill you than share the air with you. But that didn’t bother Robbie. He was right at home among them. “If they say I can trust Berks, I will trust him. Besides,” he said, rolling his shoulders, “I can think of no one else who can get their hands on the information we need.”

  Bruce snorted, then gulped the last of his ale, before wiping the froth from his face with the back of an already soiled sleeve. “What’s this letter you said you found? And what’s it got to do with Ireland? Couldn’t we have asked around in Liverpool?” Bruce’s voice was edging on the whiny, but Robbie knew better than to assume Bruce was complaining. The man would sit through a hail of musket balls without flinching. No…this wasn’t him complaining, this was him forgetting he’d already asked all those questions; at their hideout in Leeds, at the dock in Liverpool, on their ship crossing the Irish Sea, and not more than thirty minutes ago when they’d first set foot in the teeming pub.

  “I have already answered all those questions, Bruce. And if you call that wench over one more time, I will slit your throat so you can’t swallow another drop.” His voice
was hard, without inflection. It was the voice he used when robbing the well-appointed carriages of nobles. Nobles with more money than purpose; men and women who cared more for their baubles than their people. And so, he relieved them of their baubles and purses so they could better recognize the plight of the less fortunate.

  At least that’s what he told himself when he was lying in a bed of gold coins, tupping a comely maid.

  Bruce belched, making Robbie cringe. “Oh, aye, you said the letter mentioned someone of interest—and do not think I wouldn’t kill you before you had the chance to ruin my throat.” Bruce’s sneer was about as menacing as a puppy with a twig.

  Choosing to ignore Bruce’s pathetic threat, Robbie drawled, “And that someone is why we took the ship from Liverpool and are now sitting in this hell-hole by the sea—I really wish you’d stop licking your mug, Bruce.” Suddenly, the image of Bruce as that same puppy with a mug in his maw surfaced in Robbie’s mind. He swallowed the chuckle that emerged.

  “Are you going to finish yours?” Bruce asked, his unfocused eyes gleaming at the mug in Robbie’s grip.

  “No. And neither are you. What good are you to me if you can’t hold a sword—bastard.”

  Bruce shrugged, sniffing. For a man of Bruce’s size—a head taller than most men, and wider than most doorways—he was about as hard as pudding. Until you threatened one of his mates; then, you’d see the true strength of The Braw Bolton. A strength like that came in handy when robbing carriages along the foot of the Pennines in the River Aire valley.