A strait-laced lieutenant. A free-living pirate. A hopeless love.
Quinn has never met a man quite like Perry. Stern and cold on the outside, burning up inside with secret passion. Yearning for a mastery only Quinn can satisfy. But Perry is no outcast—he’s a respectable officer in His Majesty’s navy. Reluctant to test his love for a pirate, Quinn baulks at asking him to give up everything he holds dear.
Though he has no regrets about their night of glorious sin, Perry sees no future with Quinn. Unlike the pirates of Port Royal, he isn’t free to love where he pleases. If word of his illicit affair came to the ears of Commodore Pobjoy, his career would be at an end. And the disgrace might mean he could never return home to England.
With war on the horizon, the Caribbean is a hotbed of intrigue. Quinn is betrayed and thrown into Monte Gris, an impregnable dungeon even the fearsome Brethren of the Coast aren’t strong enough to breach. Perry is stunned. Everything he valued is hollow and meaningless without his master.
Willing to risk all to get Quinn back, he refuses to abandon hope and plots a daring and dangerous rescue. But he can’t do it alone. He’ll need every scrap of ingenuity at his disposal to persuade the Black Wolf and the crew of the Audacious that his plan will work.
This time, it’s not just Perry’s career and reputation at stake. If he fails, men will die. And both he and Quinn will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of a terrifying acolyte of the Spanish Inquisition.
About the Series:
In Port Royal, a brotherhood arises. A society of gallant buccaneers and rough marauders who owe allegiance to no one but themselves. Fiery men of fierce passions who take what they want and love where they choose.
Set sail for swashbuckling adventure with the Pirates of Port Royal!
An interview about the Pirates of Port Royal III, Pirate Master
Who has been your favourite character to write and why?
That’s really hard. It’s like asking who your favourite child is! But today I’ll pick Perry.
His total acceptance of his core self is heartening, and though he has occasional doubts, he always finds comfort in the Bible. In each story, I search for the Bible verses that inspire him. The contradiction that allows him to be a devout believer while totally embracing his sexuality makes me laugh and feel proud at the same time. I adore his gentle love for Quinn, so quietly expressed, and his fierce strength when defending him.
I guess I’m picking him today because I just wrote an awesome flashback in Pirate’s Revenge. It so clearly shows the hypocrisy of the adults around him that led him to his own unique set of religious beliefs. Also, what kind of upbringing he had, and his stoic control of his emotions, even as a ten-year-old boy.
What was the hardest part of writing Pirate Master?
Writing about Quinn’s internal struggles after his experiences in the dungeon. He can’t help comparing the things he does to Perry to the things that were done to him. And he can’t help comparing himself with the evil Manos. Quinn is a strong man who’s already fought and won many battles over identity and self esteem. But to put him through this was hard. We authors really know how to be mean to our characters…
Tell us one thing about them that we don’t learn from the book, the secret in their past.
Perry was betrothed at sixteen to his childhood sweetheart. But while he was away at sea, she married a Frenchman, and he never set eyes on her again. His love for her was brotherly, though, and his intention in marriage was to get her out of her father’s household. He’s glad she found a man to love and hopes they’ll have many children.
Quinn has a lot of secrets in his past. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any of them, because then he’d have to kill you. But the secret ingredient in his famous salmagundy, a seventeenth century dish that’s a kind of ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ stew, is goat peppers.
What did you have the most fun writing?
That would have to be Quinn’s insults and curses. The Irish have such a rich and colourful language, and their curses are amazing. From things like ‘May the seven terriers of hell sit on the spool of your breast and bark in at your soul-case’ to ‘May you have lice in your crotch and no nails to scratch with’. Pure fucking poetry.
When Quinn verbally spars with Chacal, he uses about ten different terms for penis and some really creative insults. My favourite is when he tells Chacal to get some breath mints because: ‘I’d swear on my granny’s grave the patron demon of putrefied cabbages took a shit in your mouth.’
Tell us something we don’t know about your heroes.
Perry has medical training—such as it was in the 1660s! He knows a few herbal remedies, how to properly tie a bandage, and even helped perform an amputation. Without vomiting, which is doubly impressive.
Quinn is afraid of spiders. Not teensy little house spiders, but the big, fat, ugly ones, especially those with long hairy legs. He doesn’t mind rats because they eat the spiders.
What secondary character would you like to explore more?
I’d really like to write more about Raphe Ashburn. He’s only briefly mentioned in Pirate Master, but makes his debut in The Penitent Pirate and has a role in Pirate’s Revenge.
His wife and child died after he brought them to the Virginia colony, and he blames himself. To bury his guilt, he subsumes himself in every debauchery he can find, but he’s sworn to never touch a woman again to honour Susannah. And this is how he came to have a passionate affair with Quinn—it doesn’t touch Susannah’s memory.
It makes sense Raphe would eventually find a sweet, kind woman who’ll make him forget his guilt over Susannah and little Abbie, but I have a feeling his true love will turn out to be someone quite different…!
Jules is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this tour – for a chance to win, enter via Rafflecopter:
Not yet time to rise.
He subsided back into his lover’s embrace. Recalling whose arms were wrapped strong around him, whose heart beat slow and steady under his ear, Perry smiled drowsily.
Sometime later, he woke alone, the bed beside him cold. Disappointment gripped him. But when he lifted his head, he saw a pair of boots, the tops sagging to one side, and a shirt and breeches hanging from a hook. Quinn’s clothing from last night. Wherever the master had gone, he could not be far.
Perry stretched out stiff arms and legs, and rubbed his tender arse in idle memory. Thinking of last night brought a grin to his face. He climbed from his bunk and stuck his head through the stern window.
The harbour was smooth and still, and other ships and boats were faint silhouettes in the predawn gloom. With only a handful of men aboard and the watch changeover at least an hour away, he took the chance no one would be wandering about this part of the ship. Naked but for his shirt, he dashed to the wardroom quarter gallery.
He peered into the little mirror nailed to the bulkhead. If he stood in the right spot, he could see his whole face in its burnished surface. He was surprised to see looked much the same. He touched the scar under his eye and traced down to his lips with light fingers. Mayhap the customary tightness in his face was eased.
The crew would tease him mercilessly for last night, but it was a price he was willing to pay. He wanted more of Quinn’s kisses, both the rough and the gentle. Never had he dreamed they would be lovers, not after so many months of crossing swords. It had taken him so long to come to his senses. Too long, he thought wistfully. Because one way or another, his time with the Brethren of the Coast was about to come to an end.
The news flying around the port came to his ears as soon as he set foot on land yesterday. Governor Modyford, newly appointed and on his way from Barbadoes, intended to honour King Charles’ new accord with Madrid. The market was abuzz with speculation. If the governor revoked the marques against the Spanish, would the Brethren ships change allegiance? Would they go to the French colonies of Saint-Domingue and Tortuga, or even to the Dutch in Curacao?
The Audacious might not abandon Port Royal, but Perry was still a lieutenant in the navy. He would still have to leave. Making peace with Spain was a clear sign that the English crown had made its decision—war with the Dutch Republic. Sooner or later Perry would be recalled, returned to England to defend home shores. Belike he would be given a command. Not even Commodore Pobjoy’s spite would stop him being promoted in a time of war.
For years, Perry had dreamed of being a captain. For months, he had pined to return home. At last, he was on the verge of having his ambitions granted. He sighed at the irony.
Because last night, Quinn made himself Perry’s master, and everything had changed.
The ambitions he had once aspired to, the blocks on which he had built his lonely existence, the things he had long accepted as his lot in life, all had collapsed like a house upon the sand. Now his greatest wish was to stay in the Caribbean and serve aboard the Audacious. Even if he never rose higher than second mate, he preferred that to being half a world away from Gabriel Quinn.
But his native caution warned him to be wary. Not to put too much stock into Quinn’s sweet words of possession.Their shared passion might be as ephemeral as a candle: burning bright whilst the night lasts, naught but a puddle of cold wax in the light of day.
After all, the sailing master could do better than a charmless nobody. Perry stared at himself in the mirror. Staring back was a man all of drabness: mousy hair, colourless eyes, bland features. And there were deeper things amiss with him, things beyond the power of a mirror to show: tongue-tied in company, lacking any gentlemanly refinement, ignorant and uneducated. What could a man like Quinn see in him?
A complete mess is what he’ll see if I don’t clean up. Perry smoothed down his wayward curls in an attempt to look less freshly fucked. He grimaced, an expression that landed somewhere between smug and rueful. Even if Quinn did not fuck him into disarray again this morning, erelong every pirate in Port Royal would know the sailing master of the Defiant had tamed the uptight Mr Perry-grin.
He filled the basin and stripped, splashing his body and dousing his head. He scrubbed vigorously, feeling an energising tingle all over. Some parts of himself, however, were very tender, and he dabbed the cold water carefully on those raw places.
The door creaked. Snatching up his shirt, he pivoted to put his back to the wall. Quinn stood in the doorway clad only in his drawers, his magnificent chest on display. Perry’s breath caught, and he was tempted to drop to his knees. Instead, he dropped his shirt. Quinn knew his scars; last night he had traced every one with tongue and finger. Perry felt no shame before him.
At this show of trust, he was rewarded with the master’s sensuous smile. He returned the smile shyly and turned back to the basin. He sluiced his torso, washing off the remnants of soap. A new excitement buzzed in his veins when he heard Quinn’s breeches drop to the floor. Arms slid about his waist, and his heartbeat kicked up. A naked chest pressed to his damp back, kisses marked his shoulders. A firm prick prodded his bare buttocks.
“’Tis dangerous for a pretty boy to be wandering naked around a pirate ship,” murmured Quinn into his neck, kissing and nibbling.
Tilting his head, Perry leaned back into the embrace. “Am I in danger, Master Quinn? Surely you’d not take advantage of a defenceless sailor lad.”
Quinn bent him forward. Hands on the bulkhead, he pushed back as a hard length slid between his thighs.
“Only when he’s as saucy a piece as you, Mr Peregrine. I’ll be taking advantage of you at every opportunity.”
From the time I learned to talk, I told stories. From the time I learned my letters, I wrote the stories down!
I love vintage items, from advertising posters and pulp fiction covers to Art Deco furniture to Victorian sex toys.
I’ve lived, studied, and worked in several countries, but I always return to Australia. My home is near the beach in Queensland, where I live with my unconventional family. But I miss the cold winters and often dream of sitting by a blazing fire on a snowy night.
Author Website: http://www.julesradcliffe.com
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