I loveseseses this book. This is the reissue so run out and buy it if you haven’t read it yet.

PIRATES! Looks very PoC yes?

The Excerpt:
Captain Gideon Horn sat staring into space. He hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to tell the men that he was giving the convict women a chance to choose their husbands. What demon had come over him to let him suggest such a thing? It wasn’t as if these women expected such privileges. In New South Wales, they’d have had no choices at all, or very little.

Opening a desk drawer, he dug around in the bottom until he found a little-used flask of rum he kept there for when he had the ague. He seldom drank hard liquor for any reason, but today it was warranted. He took a sip, coughed, then took another. A few more sips and his anger evened out a fraction.

So what if he’d given the women a choice? He wanted them to be happy. If they were happy, they’d do as they were told and add their skills to those of his men. Women were needed on Atlantis, not just to provide an outlet for the men’s sexual urges, but to perform other tasks as well–cooking and weaving and gardening, things his men knew nothing about. And if giving the women a little freedom of choice made them more amenable to their situation, he’d do it. The men would understand once he explained it to them that way. Certainly, he’d prefer that his own wife, whomever he chose, married him of her own free will.

A brief knock sounded at the door. Thrusting the rum flask into the drawer, he settled back in his seat and called out, “Come in.”

Miss Willis entered. When the reformer had left his cabin before, she’d been full of fire and fury, but now she seemed more subdued, even afraid. Strangely enough, he didn’t particularly like that demeanor on her, and that made him speak more sharply than he should. “Well? Have the women decided to accept my offer?”

She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. The fear vanished, leaving behind a fierce determination that showed itself in the stubborn set of her mouth and the glint in her pretty brown eyes. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” He rose from behind the desk, rounding it to stand in front of her. “Remember, if they don’t want to take the week to choose, I’m simply going to let my men pick whom they want–”

“No!” When he raised one eyebrow, she hastened to add, “I mean, they want to have the week, of course. It’s better than the alternative. But they have some questions. We have some questions. About how this will work.”

He settled one hip on his desk, watching her intently. She looked flustered, and that was just how he wanted her to feel. The more flustered she was, the quicker they could settle all this, and he could get her out of his cabin.

Why he wanted to get her out of his cabin, he preferred not to examine too closely. “Ask your questions, but be quick about it. I’ve got a ship to run.”

As relief spread over her face, she tucked a tendril of hair up under her frilly cap and squared her shoulders. “Some of the women have children. Will the men who marry them take on the responsibility for their children as well?”

“Of course. We’re not monsters, you know.”

That brought a frown to her face. Clearly she disagreed.

“And what about the older women? We have several women past child-bearing age. If none of the men wish to marry them, would you choose them a husband who might not want them?”

Confound her, he hadn’t considered that. But that could easily be corrected. “I’ll make an exception for the older women who can no longer bear children. If they find no man who will marry them, they are free to remain unmarried.”

Her breath came out in a sudden whoosh. “So if a woman can find no man to marry her, she doesn’t have to marry.”

“I didn’t say that.” The little witch was putting words in his mouth now. “The women of child-bearing age must still choose a husband, or one will be chosen for them.”

With a sniff, she crossed her arms over her chest. He wondered if she had any idea how she looked standing in the center of his cabin. With that ridiculous cap on and her demure dimity gown torn and dirty from the hurried transfer of the women to the Satyr, she reminded him of an urchin begging favors of a lord. Except he wasn’t a lord, and she was certainly no urchin.

She proved that when she lifted her chin in a lofty expression of defiance. “Suppose a woman is too plain to attract a husband? Will you force some man to marry her just because you want to pair them all up?”

Her words sparked his temper, as much because of her logic as because of her contempt for his plans. He stalked toward her, finding a grim satisfaction in the sudden wariness that leapt into her face. “My men have spent the last eight years at sea with only an occasional night in port to satisfy their need for female companionship. Your women could be horse-faced and snaggle-toothed, and my men would still want them, I assure you!”

It wasn’t entirely true, but he’d had enough of her quibbling. She would follow his rules, if he had to lock her up to do it!

She backed away from him, her cheeks pinkening. But even when she came up against the door to his cabin and saw she was trapped, she continued to plague him. “I hardly believe that your men would want a wife who’s–”

“Enough!” He planted his hands against the oak door on either side of her shoulders, pinning her between them. “Your women have a week to choose husbands. When that week is over, I’ll do as I see fit with whomever’s left unwed, and nothing you say will change that!”

“But you’re not thinking this through,” she protested earnestly, turning her pretty chin up another notch. “If you force people–”

“Why are you being so stubborn? Are you worried you won’t find a husband? Is that it? Are you afraid that nobody’ll choose you?”

The color drained from her face. “Why, you obnoxious, despicable–”

“Because you needn’t worry about that. Plenty of men on this ship will find you attractive.”

Before she could stop him, he tugged her mob cap loose, casting it aside on the floor. As she stared at him with wide eyes, her breath coming in quick, jerky gasps, he felt desire bolt through him, sudden as a summer squall. Auburn strands of hair clung loosely to the bun she’d tortured them into, and her eyes were nearly the same color, a dark, reddish-brown fringed with the longest, most delicate lashes he’d ever seen.

By God, she was beautiful. Peach-tinged lips . . . a wide, white brow . . . and satiny skin with just enough freckles to hint at a mischievous nature. He hadn’t been this close to her before, hadn’t had a good look at that delectable face.

He and his men had come across many Englishwomen during their days of pirating. And though he’d kissed one or two to irk their stuffy husbands, he’d never wanted any of them. Not the way he suddenly wanted this one.

That thought frightened the bejesus out of him. She wasn’t for him, this earl’s stepsister who’d been fool enough to travel aboard a convict ship as a reformer. Let one of his men take the little witch into his bed and suffer her temper and her lofty expectations.

Yet that didn’t appeal to him either.

He should push away from her now, but he couldn’t. Not until he’d seen a little more. In a trance, he removed her hair pins until her hair tumbled down in a twisted rope about her shoulders. He raked his fingers through the thick mass until the strands scattered over his fingers like threads of silk. Soft, so soft. How long had it been since he’d touched a woman’s hair like this? How long since he’d even been this close to a woman?

He twirled one coppery lock around his finger, and that seemed to rouse her from her stunned silence.

“Stop that,” she whispered, a troubled expression crossing her face.

“Why?” He smoothed her hair down over one shoulder, thinking that she had the creamiest skin he’d ever seen, skin that was just begging to be touched.

She gasped when he stroked one finger up along the curved contours of her neck. “It’s not . . . proper,” she said.

That made him smile. “Proper? We crossed the line from proper to improper right after you left the Chastity. You’re on a pirate ship, remember? You’re alone in a cabin with a notorious pirate captain . . . you’ve lost your proper little cap . . . and I’m about to kiss you.”

As soon as he’d said the words, he knew they were a mistake, and not because of the outrage that filled her face. Kissing her was dangerous. She wasn’t the woman for him.

But he had to taste her once. Just a little taste.

So before a protest could even leave her lips, he brought his mouth down on hers.