At Her Pleasure. Cindi Myers

real reason he couldn’t attend a staff meeting—because he’d been occupied with his latest girlfriend. The man was an accomplished liar and it was cold comfort to know she wasn’t the first fool he’d deceived.

      She’d emerged from the affair doubting everything from her physical attractiveness to her judgment. Though she knew Kenneth was in the wrong—he was the one who’d cheated and lied—she couldn’t help but wonder if she was also to blame. Maybe if she’d handled things differently, she wouldn’t have ended up so hurt.

      “Here, I brought you something to take your mind off the jerk.” Adam pulled a slim paperback from his pocket and offered it to her.

      “What is it?”

      “Some background info on where we’re going and what I hope to find there.”

      Adam had tried previously to give her more details about their destination and the shipwreck he was searching for, but once he went into academic-lecture mode her eyes glazed over and she’d refused to listen further. She didn’t care why they were headed to this deserted island, only that the island was far from Michigan and her problems.

      Expecting a boring academic tome, she took the book and studied the cover. A lurid watercolor portrayed a scantily clad woman standing on a gallows. Confessions of a Pirate Queen? she read the title, amused. This certainly didn’t sound like a textbook.

      “Passionata, aka Jane Hallowell, was a female pirate in the early 1700s, based on a previously deserted atoll that came to be known as Passionata’s Island—our destination on this trip,” said Adam.

      “A female pirate?” This definitely piqued her interest. “Were there really such things?”

      “Definitely. The most well-known is Anne Bonney, but there’s also Mary Reade, and Grace O’Malley, the daughter of a pirate who followed in her father’s footsteps.” He tapped the cover of the book. “But Passionata was in a class by herself.”

      Nicole turned the volume over and studied the painting of a full-rigged sailing ship with a Jolly Roger flying from its mast. “How so?”

      “For one thing, she was one of the most successful. She and her all-female crew liberated merchant ships—mostly British—of millions of dollars in cargo, from gold coins to imported spices.” Adam had warmed to his subject now, assuming the tone of a professor lecturing his students.

      “I guess that kind of money will get you talked about,” Nicole said.

      “It wasn’t only the money people talked about.” He grinned. “Passionata had an interesting approach to life.”

      As if being a female pirate wasn’t interesting enough.

      “She was known as quite a seductress, and advocated ideas that were shocking for their time. Supposedly some of the highest members of British society secretly came to the island, seeking her advice on the art of seduction.”

      Nicole studied the cover illustration again. “So is this one of those tabloid tell-alls about her sordid life?”

      “This book was supposedly written by Passionata herself while she was awaiting trial in Newgate Prison in 1715.” He tapped the cover again. “Read it. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

      She nodded. She’d brought a couple of novels with her, but none of them had been able to hold her interest. What she really needed was something to help her get over the failures she’d left behind. She could approach Confessions of a Pirate Queen like one of those self-help books everyone swore by. A woman who’d succeeded in a male-dominated field might have some handy career lessons to impart, and a pirate queen who was also a known seductress could surely teach Nicole a few things about charting her own course in her relationships with men. She lay back against the pillows in the narrow bunk in the ship’s cabin and read the opening lines with interest:

      I, PASSIONATA, the most famous lady pirate, stand as a witness to the power of woman. It is this strength that has made the men who govern the laws of the land tremble in fear before me. It is this mastery and my audacity in using it that has led them to seek to silence me on the gallows. But as long as I have breath I will speak, so that others, women and men, may learn.

      I am Passionata, and this is my truth.

      What exactly did the lady pirate mean about “the power of woman”? Weren’t women of her day more powerless than most? As much as Nicole could recall from her college history courses, in those days women weren’t allowed to own property or sign legal documents. They were at the mercy of their husbands or male relatives.

      Things had changed a great deal for the better, but she had to admit that one of the things that had hurt most in the whole debacle with Kenneth had been her own feeling of powerlessness. He had held all the cards. When she’d learned of his infidelity and lies, she’d wept and ranted and made demands—all of which he ignored with an unsettling calmness that only made her feel more out of control.

      Then he’d fired her, and there’d been nothing she could do. He’d pointed out—also with chilling calm—that as owner of the business he had the right to hire and fire anyone he wished, at any time, for any reason. Besides, he’d added, everyone knew about their affair and that it had ended, and she didn’t want to stay around to become the object of office gossip, did she?

      Ha! Too bad she didn’t have the option of turning pirate and making Dr. Ken walk the plank!

      I was born Jane Hallowell, daughter of George Hallowell, a successful merchant, owner of a half-dozen fine merchant ships. I was no great beauty as a child, but as I matured I was endowed with a handsomeness that attracted men.

      One of these men was a pirate. His name does not matter here, and indeed, I have vowed never to speak it again. He wooed me with pretty presents and exciting tales of his adventures on the seas. He mesmerized me with smooth words and aroused in me feelings I had never experienced before. He stole my virtue—nay, I gave it gladly, knowing that I was in love and one day would soon wed.

      What a naive child I was! On the very day when I waited on the docks for my lover to arrive and take me away with him forever, I learned that my father’s fleet of merchant ships had been attacked, and had suffered a grievous loss. My poor father wailed and buried his face in his hands. When I asked who had done this thing, he uttered the very name of my pirate!

      The man I had loved, to whom I had given my all, had never loved me. He had used me to learn the secrets of my father’s business—the routes of my father’s ships and their cargos. He had struck like a cobra, taking all, destroying my father.

      Destroying me.

      Or so he thought. But I would not be destroyed. Not when the creditors came to auction the house and all our belongings. Not when my father took his own life by shooting himself with a pistol. I died, too, then. Jane Hallowell died.

      But Passionata was born.

      Fascinated, Nicole read on. She learned how Passionata took her father’s last remaining ship and sailed to the pirate’s haven of Tortuga, where she searched among the brothels and bars for other women like herself—desperate women with nothing to lose and a determination to take revenge on the male sex who had used them so cruelly. From one of the women she learned of the deserted atoll where she made her headquarters and began almost sixteen years of seduction and destruction.

      Yes, we were women. The so-called weaker sex, without the physical strength of men. But we have something greater. We have the mental stamina that only women have.

      And we have the one weapon that can bring all men to their knees. For every man—as long as he is a true man, and not the other kind, who, indeed I have found to be great allies—will succumb to the power of a woman’s sexuality. Since Adam bowed before Eve, men have always been defeated by this power.

      I have devoted my life to teaching all women who want to learn how to use this power. A woman who knows the power of her own body will never be at the mercy of a mere man again.

      Nicole reread these last words out