Excerpt of The Bride and the Buccaneer by Darlene Marshall

Sophia looked at the point indicated, read it silently, then handed the book back to him.

“Now,” Jack said in triumph, “tell me what you just read.”

“‘Slipping then a pillow under me, that I might give time the fairest play, I guided officiously with my hand this furious battering ram, whose ruby head, presenting nearest the resemblance of a heart, I applied to its proper mark…’”

Sophia continued reciting the page of text from The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in a steady monotone while Jack Burrell read along, his face changing from triumph to puzzlement.

“You read the entire page without an error.”

“Of course. I told you I could do it. And I can recite the clues for the treasure from memory as well.”

“That is an amazing talent, Miss Deford.”

“It is a parlor trick, nothing more, Captain Burrell. But in this case, a useful parlor trick.”

He was watching her now with a new look on his face, one of speculation.

“Draw me this map then, Miss Deford, and I will let you go unharmed.”

“I am offering you a business opportunity, Captain Burrell, a chance to find a sizable treasure and to get it ahead of a man you have a grudge against. What gain is there for you in molesting or killing me?”

“Satisfaction!” Burrell snapped. “For five years I dreamt of what I would do when I caught up with you, Miss Sophia Deford! You cost me everything I had, put me at the mercy of press gangs, and meanwhile you were living comfortably off the proceeds of my efforts!”

“Running a bookstore is hardly living a sybaritic life of revelry, Mr.—Captain Burrell. What a whining person you are, to carry on so after all this time! Take me to Florida, Captain, and we will find enough treasure that all your dreams of avarice and luxury will be fulfilled. You can retire from robbing ships and play at highwayman or do whatever else suits you. And you never have to see me again.”

“If I throw you to the sharks, I also never have to see you again!”

“Yes, but you will not have Garvey’s Gold. And Whitfield might get it. Then how would you feel?”

“You don’t have what it takes to find Garvey’s Gold,” he sneered, firing his last salvo.

She stood and leaned forward, hands flat on the table, her face so close to his she could see the stubble on his square chin.

“The treasure is estimated to be worth fifty thousand pounds, Captain Burrell. Fifty thousand pounds. I would walk through Hell, barefoot, to get fifty thousand pounds of gold and silver. And I wager you are willing to put up with me to get your share of the booty.”

“If I join you in this fool’s quest, your share might be only twenty-five thousand.”

“We shall see,” was all she said. She sat back down in the chair, and watched Jack Burrell stand and pace his cabin, glaring at her. Sophia could tell this wasn’t playing out as he intended. No more so than the scene in the cave some five years back. He still underestimated her, and that was a good thing. She couldn’t relax her guard, not now, but if she could keep leading him along, she might get the prize in the end.

And then she could deal with Lucky Jack Burrell once and for all. The man simply was not cut out for a life of larceny, at least not with her in his vicinity...