The alteration of Ashley’s frocks was the best idea I’d hatched since boarding this ship. Extravagant, brocaded fabric covered my frame from breasts to feet. Practical, sturdy material. Yet so elegant in detail. And something I hadn’t noticed until now… The dazzling blue threads matched the color of his eyes.

I couldn’t wait to see his reaction, to watch his gaze devour the gold-embroidered whorls that edged the deep-cut bosom, the dramatic tuck where my waist greeted my hips, and the skirt full of turnings and windings that accentuated my curves.

I loathed constricting garments, but this morning, I felt fashionably feminine. Sensual. Better than ordinary.

The reflection in the window caught my eye, and for a poignant moment, I saw the image of Lady Abigail Leighton. Golden hair blazing in the sunrise, huge cerulean blue eyes, regal features, delicate lines… Was that really me? It couldn’t be. My mother had been such a gorgeous woman.

Doubt swarmed in, heavy and sticky, clinging to my skin.

Graceful garb, tamed curls, and proper posture didn’t change what I was.

Pirate whore.

His mockery didn’t hurt me. I was, by my own will, a pirate. And by aristocratic standards, a ruined whore to boot. I owned that.

What had injured me with Ashley had been his timing. He’d told me I was beautiful, touched me with interested fingers, melted me with heated looks, coaxed tendrils of my trust, and… Rejection. He’d hit me right when he knew it would hurt me the most.

Movement sounded in the sleeping chamber.

The prick hath risen.

I breathed in slowly and remained out of view in the fore cabin, listening to him urinate off the balcony. Just thinking about his cock in his hand brought to mind other things I’d heard and seen him doing at that rail.

It still scrambled my mind. For a man who was annoyingly strict, over-precise, and more strait-laced than a preacher at Sunday service, he sure did have a lot of pollution to release at the end of the day.

Had he stroked himself to completion every night before he’d met me? Or was this a new habit inspired by my charming personality?

One evening, in the very near future, I would join him on that balcony and take matters into my own hands. In the literal sense.

I hated him, and at the same time, I longed to pleasure him in ways a refined lady wouldn’t begin to consider.

He was commodore of HMS Blitz, the only one-hundred-gun ship of the line on the sea. But with me, he would be a man, mortal and made of flesh that hardened with the hunger to sink into my velvety sheath and live there until death and beyond.

Or so thought my ego.