Becca’d been on her way to her betrothal, or rather she’d escaped from crowded, maddening London, back to her stormy, Atlantic tossed Cornwall coast; three hundred miles further west than most London courtiers would ever venture.

        The whole world was in mad upheaval! Pirates raided coasts. Neighbor killed neighbor, for God and Right. Their Catholic king’d run away and his daughter, with her Dutch Protestant husband, now ruled; as Becca’s healthy loveliness and strong family name remained besieged by an earl, whose grown heir had died, and now he wanted another, by her.

        Unlucky Becca.

        She’d lost two babes; both to fever, then lost her beloved, gentle husband in the king’s senseless wars and now this earl, older than her father, had reached out his covetous hands, to make her his countess, in payment for her father’s impending bankruptcy.

        Both men had kept a vigilant eye upon her, until the indomitable earl had thrown an “intimate” party of great size, in relief of signed promises between THEM, about her.

        They’d blinked, whilst toasting each other’s great fortune, and she’d run.

                        * * * *

        Running straight here wasn’t a great idea, except not one of her family’d been home from court in ten years. Besides, she’d gone to the modest hunting lodge in the dense, pine scented forest overlooking the lovely, tempestuous sea.

        Her lady’s maid had been bubbling like champagne to soon be living in a castle; so Becca’d come alone, her nearest neighbor a hermit in a hovel several miles away, said to have been an Anglican priest, who’d fallen in love and love had shattered him for all human company.

        “If a man can be a hermit, so can I.” But the cottage was long unused and without food, so she’d gone out. “Men hunt. I can hunt and, oh, goodly sized mushroo—.”

        “Don’t!”

        She froze, startled. This goodly sized man was clearly no hermit, as he was dressed like a fighting sailor; an officer of a lucrative privateer vessel, perhaps, by his fine cloak.

        “Wh-Who are you?” His bright gaze was rather rude, his brighter smile impertinent, which is to be expected of an Irishman.

        “Someone who knows those mushrooms you’re about to harvest are poisonous.”

        “Says who?”

        “Says God, who created them.”

        “Oh. Who—?”

        “Am I? A man seeking natural beauty in nature, and finding it.” She blushed, despite herself; then frowned at her weakness to his charm. “Actually, I’m a pirate.” Her eyes grew large, and then she recovered her court matron’s worldly decorum, until he said, “And yah must be the runaway lady.”

        “Wh-What?”

        “You. Clearly. Fair. Of Cornwall. A good man’s widow and a foolish man’s daughter, who a less than great nobleman wishes to wed, bed, and bear his progeny.” Her eyes flitted side to side, as if cornered. “No one’s here for yah, yet, darlin’. I talked up a groom at your parent’s home, when I espied the frantic activity there in search of yah. They’re a few miles off, though, as you’re here, with me.”

        “I’m not with you.”

        He stepped forward, and she back.

        “To answer yah, I’m Aidan.”

        She was about to say, “Who cares,” and other things along those lines to the smug Irishman, when it abruptly downpoured and rumbling lighting struck near with great violence, and so he grabbed her and ran to her cabin lodge, the only solid shelter for miles.

                        * * * *

        “Well, sir, I’d offer you tea and cakes, but the servants haven’t stocked the larder lately.”

        He smiled, rather smugly she thought, with a charming crooked turn of his lips, as he put down his travel pack and pulled from it, an imported wine—a good one, cheese, bread, and even a French roasted chicken.

        “Perhaps, Lady Becca, since you’ve provided shelter from the storm, I can provide the meal? And we can be friends?” Her stomach made an unladylike rumble.

        “Are you Catholic, Irishman?”

        “Ah. Religious differences. I’m a man and you a woman; we need no more opportunity for war than that. Or are yah not hungry enough?” He gave her a generous amount of wine in an engraved silver travel cup, then fired the hearth to burn away the damp, as they ate their meal.

        It was pleasant here, alone with him, and the rain.

        “So, Aidan the pirate, whose engraved silver hawk is this that you’ve stolen?”

        “Not ‘stolen.’ A gift. From a fine lady with fine, strong thighs for long nights of bedridin .”

        “Don’t be insulting and coarse.”

        “You asked. Why’d yah run from such a fine betrothal?”

        “I-I don’t want to speak of it. Did a lady truly gift you this silver?”

        “Yes. ‘Truly’.” There was a long, self-conscious silence, which hid a strong mutual recognition and attraction. “I-I see why your bridegroom-to-be has fallen all over himself to have yah.”

        “Really? And should I care what a pirate sees or says?”

        “Yes. A pirate’s a rogue, who sees what others are too self-conscious to admit; he seizes what servants must carefully tend and fear to take; he says that although a certain woman’s nose is a bit crooked, she is a heart stopper.”

        “My nose is NOT crooked!”

        “Oh, I didn’t mean you. You don’t stop my heart.”

        “Humph.”

        “You make it pound, like a war drum.” And when Becca gazed in his eyes for signs of deceit, Aidan had none.

        "And, really, SEEKING SADNESS instead of SEEKING JOY is truly a sad business to be about, and a more suspicious activity than pleasure and joy seeking.

        "Joy is a SMILE, a GREAT FEELING, and ECSTASY without limits.

        "It's as seamless as an egg. 

        Runaway Becca’s betrothed, her elder earl, and his huntsmen found her comfortably asleep by the hearth fire, wrapped in Pirate Aidan’s great cloak, and Aidan was gone from her side when she was abruptly awakened.

        He’d barely escaped, so at peace with her, so distracted was he by an extraordinary woman.

        “Damn.”

        He hid in the wet trees unable to return, as the earl himself gathered up his wayward fiancée and left. Aidan tipped back, not caring that his good cloak was gone, but the silver cup’s loss was immeasurable. He’d found it gone, taken, and had swallowed hard, fighting the panic to draw pistol and cutlass and retrieve it, as the sudden grief of its loss filled him.

        “You’ll not forgive me if I’m hanged for your sweet cup, would yah dearest?” He said to the sweet spirit, who accompanied him everywhere, then he left the way he’d come.

                        * * * *

        There was small talk after the quick wedding in her family home. Talk of new queen and her foreign king, of a deadly pirate roaming their western coast, an Irishman, who hated the English. “I am English,” she thought, then excused herself.

        “Why?” Her new silver haired groom had asked.

        “To prepare for my wedding night.” And he’d grinned with great anticipated pleasure.

                        * * * *

        Becca felt dizzy and disjointed, as the horizon in her head and stomach, and heart, wavered and floated and rose and abruptly dipped and ruthlessly rose again, as she told HIM her story.

        “I’d done my filial duty. Even compelled the earl to presign the completed financial draft release of my father’s obligations, sealed upon my ‘I do.’ Then I’d drank our private toast, a toast well planned by me to make me ill, and when the faked cramps and smell of sick deterred him, he went to sleep on the couch, contented that full consummation would be his in the morning. All were deep asleep, having drunk to his coming new father’s glory, as I’d tiptoed forth from my pristine bed and ran for all I was worth.”

        Aidan’s ship rose and fell with the swell of the incoming tide, but her story made his stomach roil all the more.

        “You gave your sworn word, Becca, before God.” He sounded angry.

        “Words sworn under duress must be illegal, and immoral. God wouldn’t hold me to that. Besides, a woman’s word isn’t worth a hal’ pence, everyone knows that,” she joked, but he didn’t smile.

        “How’d you find me?”

        “I’d made my maid go out to look at the sea for me, for I was locked in. She’d said she’d seen ‘a pretty little ship’ here. Good thing she tells me everything first. I didn’t let myself hope, but she said it was marked with a flying bird of prey. A hawk. And I....”

        Becca abruptly considered what she must sound like. And her cheeks flushed hot.

        “It would’ve been a deadly, bad chance, if it’d been another pirate.” He still didn’t laugh. “I married, under blackmail’s coercion, but I never swore to consummate. He may tell the world, if he likes, if he can stand the humiliation of my chatty maid declaring my bed untouched, and his unwilling bride run twice. Father’s debt is marked clean, if wed. I did. But slave to bed and babe weren’t explicitly written in our contract, although tacitly implied.”

        Pirate Aidan, wouldn’t look at her, and it bothered her more than she could bear.

        “I’m not his, Aidan, despite whether all laws and courts and gods say otherwise. Aidan, forgive me.”

        “What?”

        “Forgive me. A woman, even a woman buccaneer has only her face and body; no ship, no blade of steel, no hard arm of her own. I was trapped and it was the only way out. Until a blind chance to run again and I knew I had to run. To you.”

        “Why? You’ve just said your word means less than nothing.”

        “Why are you angry with me?”

        “You’re another man’s wife! Consummated or not. You are his.”

        “Without consummation, there is no full marriage. No divorce can be obtained, even, only annulment. This is an inconvenience, not a permanent bind. And even if it is, I cannot belong to him.”

        “And why not?”

        “Because, you stupid Irishman, I belong to you.” He stared at her in stunned disbelief. “Oh, I believe these are yours.”

        She handed him his silver cup from the cloak pocket, and noted his eyes close in prayerful thanks for its return.

        “My wife gave me this.”

        “Your—. Oh. Oh dear.”

        “Sh-She was killed, murdered by your king’s English redcoats, whilst they were taking all things from me, save this ship, this cup, and my loyal men.” He sighed deeply, as if to force the past to lie quiet for now. “You said ‘these’ are mine. What else?” She blushed and made a show of the cloak.

        “Oh, my best cloak.”

        “Yes, that. And more.” She dropped the cloak, and beneath wore only her translucent bridal shift, bridal corset, stockings, and bridal shoes. His mouth dropped open, and she stepped forward.

        “I’m the buccaneeress Becca, may I sail wherever you sail?”

Shouts on deck told of the earl’s approaching armed hunters, but the tide was in, as Aidan shouted to weigh anchor and set sail, and then he seized his cherished prize, his Becca, in his strong arms.

        “It’s not fair,” Becca moaned between gulps, of drinking a watered wine concoction, and promptly vomited, again. Aidan wiped her face, and then she fell back into his bunk, and watched as his hammock, which, though pulled to one side, swayed with the rocking of his ship. This new world of his would not be still. “Utterly not fair.”

        “Your new husband, who you jilted your wedding night, pretending to be sick, so you’d not have to accommodate him, as per your full wifely duties, and then dashing away to me and sea, I think he’d say it was your just desserts, skittish girline.”

        “I doubt he’d say ‘skittish,’ perhaps something else starting with an ‘s’ and ‘l.’ And don’t say ‘desser—’.” And she hastily draped herself over the edge, and nothing came. A wholly unattractive way to spend one’s time with one’s new lover.

        “More?” He proffered the drink and she shook her disheveled head and groaned with pathetic intensity, as he laid her back and stroked her face and arms and legs with a cool, damp sponge. “You’ll get your sea legs, yet, my lady.”

        “Becca. We’ve slept together.” He frowned in that attractive way of his, then smiled in remembrance of a small hunting lodge, and her enwrapped in his best great cloak beside him. “Not to mention me in your bed here and you there in that sling which makes me more ill at each pendulum’s swing of your bottom. And me arriving, still wearing my lovely wedding kit, prepared to consummate, but after one sweet kiss, I befoul your clothes.”

        “They’ve been befouled by worse. I’m afraid our moody lady, the sea, is more problematic when one is fully in her embrace, than when watching from steady shore.”

        “I’ve sailed before. In our sailboat as a child, and I made the Crossing to the Continent.”

        “Which means you remained close to shore, not farther out in the deep swells.”

        “Don’t say ‘swel—’…m.” She shut her mouth tight and refused to be sick and stared above her and did not see him tilt his head to watch her in her obstinate concentration to regain her superiority as mistress of her own body. Finally, she looked at him. “What? What is it?”

        “I’m glad you’re here, though not glad that you are ill.” She half sat up to answer, but decided better of it and settled back, again gazing with fixed determination. “What exactly are yah staring at?”

        “It’s stationary, that spot, right there, where the wood swirls, oh, not a good word. Now, if I could just get my insides to cease sloshing about, and as still as that, I’d be fine.”

        He chuckled, kissed her with soft lips, and put his hand on her belly and she felt his warmth through her sheer shift, since her corset stays were across the room somewhere; the constrictive thing had nearly killed her with all her sick heaving … another wrong word, “heaving.”

        So she let all words go, except “warm” and “Aidan,” who’d been so tender helping her out of her stays.

        Now that was a thing she could never say to her mother, that a pirate had helped her out of her corset. Then she stilled her mind, feeling all would be worth it; coerced marriage, flight, even regurgitating everything save her heart, which was already gone, to this man with the warm hand. And she slept.

                        * * * *

        When Becca awoke, a sturdy boy of about eight, and holding a small rat terrier dog, was staring at her.

        “Well, hullo, and who ?” He dashed off on bare feet. She lay still and assayed herself; she felt better, and tentatively sat up, then tentatively put feet to wooden floor. There were returning heavy footfalls, and then Aidan.

        “Well?”

        “I’d not test it with any smells that might….”

        “Be a trigger?”

        “Yes.”

        “I’ll have the boy attend yah. You can wear these things here, since you came without nay trousseau of belongings.”

        “Ha-ha.”

        The shy boy returned with hot water and his perky little dog, then left, leaving her to listen to the sounds of men working the ship; and its boards creaking in sighs, as if breathing, and then she washed herself, her shift, and stockings, and slipped into Aidan’s linen shirt and wrapper, both smelling deliciously of him. The boy brought more water, but soon she was sobbing incessantly, and he brought Aidan.

        “Yah ill, again? The boy says you’re crying.”

        “No. Yes. It’s utterly stupid, except….”

        “ ‘Except’?”

        “I can’t wash my hair; bending over….”

        “Reminds yah of ‘bending over the sick basin,’ aye?”

        “ ‘Aye.’ My stomach’s sore. I look a fright. And I haven’t a lady’s maid. And I’m pathetically babbling, like a fool.”

        “No. Like a fine lady, who’s risked all and hasn’t been able to enjoy it. I-I used to wash my wife’s hair. May I wash yours, then?”

        She couldn’t answer, as his offer seemed more intimate than his caring for her in sickness, nevertheless, he sat her down and laid her head back. And, afterward, he dried her hair in the breeze from the open port, after which they shared a meal of soup, bread, cheese, and wine, until their gazes seized upon the other; and bold Becca slipped off Aidan’s wrapper, and he bolted his door and followed her to bed.