Snippet # 1 – HIS BOUNTY

London docks, 1898

She stood defiantly even as she shivered in her damp clothes. The crew had gathered to look at her, a small soaked package, clearly female with soft lean curves, flared hips and breasts. It was the fabric covering her hands, face and neck ensuring not even a slice of skin was seen that was causing the restlessness.

What was she hiding? What was under them?

The bounty hunter had said she was not diseased. What then, maimed, grotesque, disfigured?

Then again, they’d all seen the women in the east, cloaked in their black full body coverings with nothing but dark luminous eyes to be seen. Whispers to foreigners questioning the practice was that the garment concealed some of the most beautiful women in the world.

Whichever related to the little bounty in front of them, it was something best known than kept a secret.

“Take off her face covering.” Captain Jax motioned to his First Mate, a ripple of unease curling in his gut. Trouble. This little package was going to be trouble.

Snippet taken from the start of Book 1 of the Pirate of Pleasure: His Bounty, due out in an Anthology called Secrets later this year.