Canham breathes new life into the tired pirate romance genre with this post-Elizabethan romp through the Caribbean. Canham spins a terrific yarn, complete with vivid historical detail, humor and characters that will touch the mind and heart. Varian...is truly a thinking woman's hero rather than an alpha-male cliché. Readers who are tired of the traditional romance formulas, characters and conflicts will find this little treasure a welcome escape.
Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review

When his ship is caught in a battle with a Spanish warship, Varian St. Clare gets unexpected help from the captain of the Iron Rose, Juliet Dante. Juliet also happens to be the daughter of the infamous Pirate Wolf—the very man he is seeking.

Varian has been sent by King James to persuade the privateers and pirates of the brotherhood to cease preying on Spanish vessels and abide by the treaty between James and Philip of Spain. However, the only way Juliet will bring Varian to her father is as her hostage.

Juliet has chosen the life of a pirate and not that of a pampered princess. She has little use for weak men, but Varian does not fit her image of a nobleman; he is much too virile and skillful with a sword to be an aristocrat, and she sets out to learn more about her captive.

Varian is fascinated by Juliet, who is no shy virgin, but a bold woman who goes after what she wants. He soon begins to crave this vivacious beauty, though doing so threatens the success of his mission.

Suddenly ensnared in a web of Spanish treachery, Juliet and Varian take to the seas on a dangerous mission that will be their salvation or their deaths.

No one swashes and buckles better than MC. You can feel the sea breeze and smell the salt air, hear the clash of swords and cannons fire. Then she adds a colorful historical backdrop, believable and memorable characters and gives you a love story to dream about - all in one book. This one's a keeper for those who love the sea and wild adventure rides.
Kathe Robin, Romantic Times

An excerpt....(Small note to eagle-eyed readers, the use of the term "my lord" instead of "your grace" is deliberate on Juliet's part. *G*)


Juliet smiled. "I want the man I marry to be uncomfortable every time I look at him. I want him unable to move when I come into the room, afraid to do so lest the air shatter and fall to pieces around him."

"An easy fear to understand," he said, glancing pointedly at the splinters from the broken chair.

"And if he is the right man, I will not care if he is a beggar or a king."

"But better a king, judging by the sparkle I see in your hand."

She looked down at the empty goblet she was holding. A tilt of her hand set the jewels that were crusted around the rim reflecting fractured points of colored light across the wall.

"The rewards of a hard day's work," she countered evenly. "In this case a small token from the private stores of Don Alonzo Perez, former capitain of the San Ambrosio. We took her off the coast of Hispaniola last winter. She was wormy and not worth the effort to repair or refit, but we sold her cargo for twenty thousand escudos. I kept the goblet, just as I keep some small token from every ship we capture."

Another casual flick of her hand indicated the wire fronted case behind the chart table that held an array of extremely fine looking weapons. They were long snouted wheel-locks for the most part, some of French design featuring inlays of mother-of-pearl, but most favored the Italian style with heavy gilt ornamentation. One pair in particular caught his eye, an unusual combination of match-and wheel-lock mechanisms with both ignitions controlled by a single trigger. The alliance of the two firing systems was reflected in the decoration on the walnut stock where a naked couple were also depicted in the act of merging. He knew this detail, even though he could not see it at this distance, because the guns were his, and the last time he had seen them, they had been on his person on the deck of the Argus.

"Damnation! Those are my Brescians!"

Juliet followed his out-thrust finger. "Hardly, sir. Those are my Brescians."

"Indeed they are not, madam. They were hand made for me by Lazzarino Cominazzo himself!"

"If memory serves, I took them off a boucan-eater named Jorges Fillarento, and if they resemble yours, then your gunmaker must have made two pair."

"I need only look at them to tell you upon the instant if they are mine or not."

"Look away," she challenged. "This instant or the next, it changes nothing."

Provoked beyond any concern for his nudity, Varian flung aside the blanket and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The bruises on his hip and shoulder made him suck air through his teeth as he stood, but the pain was superseded by the angry strides that carried him across the cabin. The case was not locked and he withdrew one of the elegant dueling pistols from the rack. When he held it to the light the glare bounced off the smooth surface of the gilt lockplate where, instead of the intricately engraved Harrow crest, Varian was startled to see three unfamiliar initials etched into the metal with a flamboyant script.

"This is not possible," he murmured. He checked the inlay on the walnut barrel and there indeed was the entwined couple, the woman's neck and back arched as if in the throes of an intense orgasm. "You have my apologies, Captain, I was assured my guns were unique."

Juliet, still seated on the floor, found herself at eye level with the duke's groin. She had, of course, already seen all there was to see when she had examined his wounds, but there was something to be said for gravity and the way it altered the appearance of appendages that were impressive at the outset. There was also a good deal of muscled thigh to distract the eye; this close she could see the indent of taut sinews at his hip, the soft furring of light brown hairs that followed down his calves.

"Do all Englishmen take such extraordinary measures to ensure the sun does not creep beneath their collars? I vow I have never seen a body half so pale as yours nor one that was smothered under so many layers of clothing this close to the equator. The rash you bear would benefit greatly from a day or two with nothing more confining than air."

Varian was startled into looking down. The rash to which she referred was indelicately located in the vicinity of his privy parts and under his arms. Soap, as Beacom had discovered to his unmitigated horror, did not mix with sea water, and since sea water was all that had been permitted for laundering during the six week voyage, the ducal linens had acquired an irritating salt residue. The aggravation had worsened when the Argus had sailed into tropical waters, for the infernal heat and sun offered no relief, nor did the sight of the ships crew stripping down layer by layer as the heat increased. Most of them worked barefoot, dressed in airy canvas pinafores and loose trousers.

Bereft of such heathenish options himself, Varian had remained in his stockings and padded trunk hose, his fashionably quilted doublets, shortcoats, and capes, itching without mercy in the silent knowledge that he cut an imposing figure on the deck. The thought of walking anywhere naked was almost as absurd as the picture he presented now, standing bare as birth in front of a woman who was inspecting his privates with a shamelessly arousing curiosity that caused his flesh to jerk.

Since it was neither the experience nor the pleasure of Varian St. Clare to have any part of his body come under such close and uninvited scrutiny, he thrust the pistol back onto its rack and started back to the bed. Her smile broadened into a chuckle, then a laugh--a sound that pricked more than just his vanity and caused him to stop cold in his tracks. Without thinking ahead to any consequences, he turned around, bent over and roughly pulled her up by her arms to stand before him.

What the devil he planned to do with her once they were eye to eye, he was not given the chance to decide, for despite the quantity of rum she had consumed, her reflexes were as fast and deadly as a cobra strike. She had a knife drawn and the point thrust under his chin before he had finished hauling her to her feet.

"You should be advised," she said, her voice as cold as the blade kissing his throat, "there are few men who would dare touch me without a very specific invitation to do so. Even fewer who have survived calling me a liar."

Varian tilted his chin higher in response to the dagger's steely inducement to do so. He released her arms and spread his hands slowly outward. "Forgive my impertinence. The guns are identical to mine; it was an instinctive reaction and I have already apologized for the infraction--something I rarely do, and hardly ever to someone who is too full of rum to respect it."

"Is that so?" she murmured, her eyes narrowing.

"Just so, madam. As for repercussions--" he clenched his jaw and lowered his chin, defying the pressure of the knife, feeling the sharp jab as the tip pierced his skin. "Considering the course our conversation has taken thus far, I find the greater concern lies in wondering if there would be consequences for refusing an invitation."

Juliet stared for a long moment. The sheer insolence of his presumptions--that she would invite him to touch her in any kind of intimate manner--nearly drove the blade deeper of its own volition. Instead, she traced the point of the dagger down his throat to his breastbone, down through the swirls of dark hair to the hard, flat plane of his belly. When the cool steel scrolled lower and rested across the base of his manhood, she angled it so that the weight of his flesh lay across the flat surface of the blade like a plated offering.

He did not even flinch.

"You show more courage than I would have credited you with, my lord," she said quietly.

"And you more bravado, Captain. Especially with the advantage of a knife in your hand."

Juliet expelled a disbelieving breath. She rid herself of the weapon, tossing it with an expert flick of her wrist, sending it across the cabin and biting into the wood beside the door. At the same time she raised a booted foot and brought it smashing down on Varian's bare instep.

Before he could react to either action, she grabbed his arm and gave his wrist a savage twist, bending his thumb back so far the joint popped. The pain flared up his arm, doubling him over at the waist; a further twist and he was crumpling down onto his knees before her.

Juliet leaned over and pressed her lips into the waves of silky hair that covered his ear. "I have no knife now, my lord. Are my words still full of rum and bravado?"

He bared his teeth, girding himself against the agony as he reached around with his free hand and hooked his arm around the back of her right leg. He wrenched it forward, feeling the tension break and throw her off balance. A second tug brought her crashing down onto the floor beneath him, hard enough that she was forced to release her grip on his wrist and thumb.

Barely had he gasped enough breath to form an oath when another whip-like twist brought her rearing up onto her elbows. Her legs snapped together like pincers and clamped tightly around his throat, squeezing off his windpipe, trapping whatever air he had managed to suck into his lungs. He tried clawing at her thighs to loosen them but it was like trying to pry two iron bars apart. He attempted to roll, to wrest himself free that way, but she countered his efforts with a savage wrench in the opposite direction, one that locked him even tighter in her grip.

The blood started to swell behind his eyeballs. Large black splotches began spreading across his vision and his chest began to burn, his muscles to scream for air. He uncurled his hands from around her thighs but before he could slam them on the planking to indicate his surrender, a brusque knock rattled against the cabin door.

At the sound of Juliet's snarled curse, it was flung open by a skinny lad of no more than twelve or thirteen balancing a large wooden tray in one hand, a thick crockery bottle in the other.

He hesitated a moment on the threshold, but if he thought it odd to see his captain lying on the floor with a naked man being choked between her thighs, the expression on his face did not betray it.

"That funny little man came lookin' fer rum an' Mr. Crisp thought ye might want summit to eat with it," he said. "Should I just put the victuals ‘ere on the table?"

"Aye. Thank you Johnny Boy," she said on a panted breath. "Take a bite of cheese for your trouble."

"Aye, Cap'n. Thankee Cap'n. Mr. Crisp also said to tell ye we've had to shorten the mains'l again, cuz the...the "great ‘eaving sow" has dropped off another point." As he said this, he cheerfully plucked a knife from his belt and helped himself to a huge wedge of yellow cheese from the wheel on the platter. He took a bite and tucked the rest inside his shirt. "‘Ee also says to tell ye the wind ‘as shifted an' the sea has picked up a chop. We'll likely be in a hard blow afore mornin'."

Juliet swore. She unclamped her legs from Varian's throat and sprang to her feet, leaving him splayed like a starfish on the floor behind her, gasping for air.

"How far astern is the Santo Domingo?"

"We couldn't ‘it her with a double charged long gun blowin' a light load."

The boy's standard of measurement indicated half a mile, perhaps more. Too great a separation if a squall was blowing up.

"Tell Mr. Crisp I'm on my way."

With his cheek puffed out over the chunk of cheese, Johnny Boy asked if there was anything else the captain needed.

"A hammock for his lordship," Juliet said. "He'll be sleeping elsewhere from now on."

The lad paused in his chewing and cocked an eyebrow. "Where'll I put ‘im?"

"Empty one of the sail lockers, it should be private enough."

The boy looked at Varian, looked at Juliet, then chuckled. "Aye, Cap'n. A locker it is."

The muted thump that marked the boy's departure brought Varian rolling over in his misery. From his position, lying prone on the floor, he was able to turn his head enough to see through the curtain of his hair. The lad was missing a leg. His right knee was bound to a padded cradle that sat atop a wooden peg. In itself, the sight was not uncommon, for seamen were often without any kind of medical treatment save the knife and saw. What caught Varian's eye was the carving on the stump and cradle. The former was whittled and polished to resemble the body of a serpent; the latter was an open mouth complete with glittering glass eyes and sharp teeth.

The duke groaned and closed his eyes again. His thumb was dislocated, his hand was burning like coals in a forge, his throat was only just beginning to respond to his efforts to swallow.

Juliet retrieved her dagger from the wall and crouched down on her haunches beside St. Clare. She could not see his face. Dark puffs of hair were being drafted in and blown out in the vicinity of his lips and, using the tip of the blade, she edged aside the curtain of gleaming locks and waited for one of the midnight blue eyes to roll up and look at her.

"Perhaps next time, sirrah, you will show more caution when you throw out your challenges." She glanced down at the hand he held cradled against his chest and clucked her tongue once in sympathy. "I'll wager that hurts a devil. Shall I pop the thumb back in for you, or can you manage it yourself?"

Through the white grate of his teeth, he released a hiss of air to coincide with the sharp twist and shove he gave his thumb. The bone clicked back into the socket with a dull thwock and though a shiver went up his arm, he did not take his eyes away from her face.

"Like you, madam," his voice rasped with fury, "I would prefer if you did not touch me again without a specific invitation to do so."

She let the hair drop back over his face and sent her gaze sweeping down his back to the tautness of his buttocks. "Depending on how one interpreted that milord, it could be mistaken for another challenge."

He drew and expelled a breath before he answered. "Never believe for a moment that it is, for I would sooner invite the attentions of a toothless, three-bellied hag."

Juliet grinned. "Faith, if that is where your preferences for female companionship lie, I shall endeavor to keep any lusty thoughts I might be tempted to have to myself."

"Do so and I shall expire in a state of eternal gratitude."

"Not too soon, I hope. You have put the thought into my head that you might be worth a ransom after all. Your intended bride, for instance. What would she pay to have you back safe and sound and..." she glanced along the muscled length of his body a second time "...unsullied by the depravities of a rapine pirate wench?"

His hair had fallen over his face again but she could see the glitter of his eyes through the silky strands.

"Or perhaps," she said, leaning closer to whisper seductively in his ear, "I should endeavor to win you over with my charm?"

"Since the necessary tools are entirely lacking," he spat, "the risk is negligible."

Juliet braced her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet.

"Savor that feeling of righteous piety, milord, for you have yet to meet my father. You think me quick to take offense? Lift your nose too high in his company and he will slice it off without a thought."