Mixed

By Louisa Trent

The year 1883...

In her sadness over the impending death of her dearest grandfather, a beautiful woman seduces a virile sea captain. Stricken with guilt over the loss of his beloved schooner, the sea captain allows himself to be seduced. No questions, no explanations, no names, no promises exchanged, they take consolation where they can find it...in the unbridled use of one another's body.

Each successive foray into passion deepens their sexual exploration until their uninhibited acceptance of carnality equals only their absolute denial of love. For while Emmaline Valette is keeping unnecessary secrets and Captain Preston Redding harbors unwarranted suspicions, both are in the market to wed someone else, someone the exacting standards of society will find infinitely suitable.

And entirely wrong for themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trent Publishing
• Release date: Dec 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502286291

Louisa Trent

Louisa Trent has been published in ebook format since 2001. Her erotic romances have been with Ellora's Cave, Liquid Silver, Loose Id and Samhain. Refusing to be "branded" ( Louisa has a rebellious streak ) she writes across the genres -- contemporary, historical, paranormal, multi-cultural, and sci-fi. Basically, she writes whatever piques her interest, and she is a writer of many passionate interests. Readers can reach Louisa through her website: www.louisatrent.com .

Book preview

Chapter One

The year 1883…Boston, Massachusetts

A damnable shame about the Duchess Anne.

Despite the old salt’s shout, Captain Preston Redding kept his head down and continued to navigate the crowds at the Boston Fruit Company.

A hell of a grand dame, she was, too, the elderly sea dog persisted. The likes of which ain’t seen much anymore on the high seas. I tell ye, Cap’n, that vessel’s capsize should never have happened. Had ye been at the helm, the schooner would not have gone down in the storm that blew up over Jamaica. Without ye in command, the Duchess was doomed before she ever pulled anchor here in the harbor.

Preston frowned. Should he take the grizzled seaman’s comment as a vote of confidence in his ship mastering abilities or a sly rebuke for discharging his captain’s responsibilities too readily?

Whatever the old salt’s intent, Preston Redding nodded and moved on.

Small talk came none too easily for him. Even the best of circumstances left Preston tongue-tied. And this was one of the worst days of his life. The news of his ship’s sinking hit him hard. The disaster was too raw to discuss with anyone yet and maybe it always would be.

My schooner. My beautiful lady of the sea…

Abuse and neglect broke the former whaling boat, left her no longer been fit for the open sea. A shell of her once glorious self, she was retired to dry dock when Preston purchased her in New Bedford Massachusetts. Paid practically nothing for her, too. Of course, practically nothing to most folks equaled just about everything to him.

At least, it had at the time.

Now was different. But, back then, the old girl had taken every last cent of what Preston had earned unloading cargo, a decade of backbreaking labor on the wharves that had started when he was a strapping young buck. As a reminder of those early days on the docks, he still wore heavy wrist straps, the blood-stained leather bands that had braced his grip and made lifting heavy crates a whole sight easier on his hands.

He had no regrets, not about any of it. Not the work. Not the raised scars that toiling from dawn to dusk had left behind on his palms and fingers. Every droplet of sweat squeezed from his body, every coin drained from his purse, both had been well spent.

Beneath the disrepair and water rot, she was a beauty, with delicate bones and graceful riggings. Two years of hammering her frame also made her sea worthy again. Not as good as new, but safe for a voyage. And that had been good enough for the likes of Preston.

Turned out, delivering tropical fruit to market in Boston from his home port in Jamaica was a lucrative business. Commissions from the Duchess had earned Preston a fortune. Not right away. Not overnight. But slowly and surely, the greenbacks came rolling in, enough for others to call him a wealthy man. And what with his recent acquisition of high-speed steamships making him more competitive, he would prosper more than ever…

But mastering those swifter vessels was just not the same as commanding his schooner. Where sailing the Duchess was the stuff of adventure, the banana route was strictly a commercial enterprise, bringing in plenty of cash, but lacking in drama and romance.

And, aye, vigilance. He’d had to keep his eye on the Duchess.

Right from the start, his beautiful lady had been strong-minded. No matter what he did to correct her, she had a will to go her own way – usually against favorable wind currents. Keeping her in line and en route took determination.

She got that from him. Aye, he was hard on her when necessary. In times of peril at sea, he was on deck around the clock. Never did he forsake her. He stayed the course, with his hand on her, encouraging her…dominating her…letting her know who owned her, who mastered her...who loved her above all else.

Christ. Now, who would he love?

No other. Unmoored, cast adrift, he would not now play the Duchess false. Truth to tell, he never had been unfaithful to her. Though she had not come to him a virgin, the Duchess Anne had belonged solely to him in Preston’s heart.

And he had let another man sail her to Jamaica.

Had he captained her on that trip, no hurricane would have sunk her. He would have moored her in a protective harbor, not out in open waters. His beloved schooner would still be afloat had he taken charge.

His fault. All his fault. And for what? For what blasted reason had he remained ashore?

To attend society parties and debutante balls hosted by the idle rich of Newport, Rhode Island.

Preston snorted. Drinking champagne on the oceanfront lawns of mansions was a hell of a silly way for a grown man to spend his summer days. Instead of peering wistfully at the pounding surf from some swanky seaside veranda, he should rightly have been sailing those crashing waves.

Still and all, he was grateful. His crew and stand-in captain had survived. Not even the cargo went down, as it had yet to be uploaded. What stuck in Preston’s craw was the futility of it all.

The purpose behind his extended stay on dry land was to find himself a bride, and he had not. The pretty pieces of fluff with whom he had dined and waltzed, and who had looked mighty fine hanging on his arm, would more than likely serve him well enough in bed. But what about all those empty hours that remained?

That was a hell of a lot of empty time to fill, and all had left him cold. Bored him to tears, in all honesty. Society mamas corseted the backbone out of their daughters until only good manners remained. Where was the spunk of those pretty virgins?

Dropped like so many wilted ribbons on dressmaker floors, he suspected.

Society misses were all the same, all as uniform as a banana and just as docilely sweet. Save, he felt no urgency to peel any of them.

Better to remain single, he reckoned, than be alone with one of them.

In the end, only his want of a family kept him searching the society marriage markets. Someone had to inherit his wealth someday, a son he would teach to sail as his seafarer father had taught Preston. They had enjoyed only a few years before the mast together and then…and then…

Preston shuddered. And then, a horrible set of factors had taken both his parents from him.

His broad shoulders a-slump, Preston crossed to the middle of the warehouse, where business agents showed tropical fruit fresh off the boat to prospective buyers.

To be fair, Preston had most likely caused all those young misses in Newport the same reaction as they caused in him. Boredom usually resulted when two people had little in common. No one’s fault. Just the way it was.

Marriage was more than romance, more than hot loins and impassioned cries, especially sea captain marriages. Extended ocean voyages meant weeks, if not months, spent apart. Only a special female could stand up under the strain of those lengthy separations.

A sea captain’s wife was an equal partner in marriage, handling all domestic matters during her husband’s absences, including emergencies. And there were always emergencies. Those pretty chits he danced with in Newport would never be able to cope. Those misses would cry over a broken nail…

Do not think to intimidate me, Mr. Timmons.

Preston startled. What the devil? Who was that speaking?

The voice originated from somewhere behind him and belonged to a female. Not to just any female, either – a female with a slight Jamaican cadence to her manner of talking. Few would notice the rhythm of her words, but Preston knew island patois when he heard it.

Homesick as never before, he whipped around in the direction of that beautiful, lyrical…mad as all hell…voice.

And spied a beautiful and angry face to match it. Her unusual features brought with them a reminder of where he had passed the last fifteen years of his life.

Mulatto, quadroon, octoroon – however the hell the law defined her ancestry – she was of mixed race. African and white, more than likely, and definitely all-woman as only a Jamaican female out to kill a man who done her wrong can be.

Preston pitied this Mr. Timmons, bewhiskered jowls and all. Honest to Christ, the fella resembled a grizzly sporting a haphazard shave. Maybe the Jamaican woman had picked up a few fleas – those tricky critters could jump – and she was giving the bear all what for because of it.

In sympathy, Preston scratched his own clean shaven jaw.

The woman did some finger pointing, some finger shaking, some poking of the air, and then she lit into the furry fella in her Jamaican twang:

You will rue the day you attempt to pull the wool over my eyes, Mr. Timmons.

Preston winced. The female was really going to town, really chewing out the furry fella’s rump.

This was about more than any damn jumping fleas.

Not that she raised her voice. Her tone was every bit as prissy and well-modulated and lyrical as before. No, she had done something more terrifying than yell.

She rephrased.

Thinking a man might have misunderstood them the first time, females always turned a sentence around the second time through. And, generally speaking, the fella had misunderstood them because men were too busy thinking those kind of thoughts to listen to a woman.

Murderous intent burned bright in her eyes. If Preston was a betting man, he would lay odds the bear was about to get his furry ass whooped.

As any innocent bystander would under the circumstances, Preston took a backward step. A good thing too. The next moment, and out of nowhere, a banana peel closer to brown in color than to yellow flew past his nose.

Seeing as how the overripe banana had narrowly missed its target, the female rolled up her jacket’s tight sleeves, thus exposing a pair of shapely forearms, and reached into a wooden crate standing open before her.

Preston knew where this was going. And sure enough, she took into her no-nonsense cotton gloves, the fingertips cut away for practicality, another mushy banana and pitched the rotten fruit.

At the grizzly.

This time, the furry fella had the good sense to seek cover. His hindquarters in motion, he skedaddled behind a tall stack of wooden crates.

Preston had some familiarity with those slatted containers. Not only because he too had hidden behind a few in his time, but also because his schooner had carried plenty in her hold through the years. Plantation owners regularly shipped their crops inside straw-lined boxes to keep them bruise-free during market-bound sea voyages.

Those boxes had not served their purpose here. Fact was – starving hogs at feed-time would turn up their snouts at the slop she was tossing.

Could be the female was taking exception to the state of those bananas. Hence her pitching fit.

Just supposition, naturally.

Irrespective of the whys and wherefores of her banana-throwing mood, this woman belonged at his side during Preston’s next bar brawl, and that was for damn sure.

Alternatively, going up against her – say during a mutiny, for instance – would scare the piss right out of Preston.

Before she turned the furry fella into a bear coat, Preston took action.

No, he did not recklessly place himself between the grizzly and the angry Jamaican. True, the sinking of his schooner had saddened Preston, but he could think of less messy ways of ending it all than by flying rotten bananas.

Neither rash nor suicidal, Preston would mount no rescue mission for the set-upon Mr. Timmons.

But he sure as fuck would watch the entertainment from a safe distance.

In search of an empty crate on which to sit his haunches down before the real bloodbath began, Preston raced across the floor.

The peels. Christ. In his hurry to get a front row seat for the show, he forgot all about the discarded skins. Like an unseasoned sailor without sea legs…like a goddamned landlubber…he slid on the splatter.

Preston was going down for the third time, about to break open his fool head on the hard warehouse floor, when the beautiful Jamaican looked over at him.

And grinned.

Could be, she found cracked skulls comical. Could be, she was flirting. Could be, it was a little of both. But no could be about it, he was not wasting this opportunity.

Regaining his even keel, Preston smiled right back at her.

But who the hell was he smiling at?

A mystery. The waterfront was a place of business. From nautical equipment to mercantile goods to tropical fruit, everything was sold down here, all out of the four-story granite and brick warehouses that lined the wharf.

Not to his recollection was there a big call for bonnets, the merchandise women generally sold. Well, either that or themselves.

Drinking establishments abounded along Atlantic Avenue, rough and rowdy places filled with sailors looking to pass a few hours before shipping back out to sea. This clientele was none too fussy about how they spent the time. So long as it involved a whore.

This beautiful, heart-stopping, banana-throwing, Jamaican female was no waterfront whore, of this Preston was confident.

So was she. Confident, that is.

To Preston’s way of thinking, nothing was more arousing than self-assurance in a woman. The hurting bulge in Preston’s trousers testified to this.

Her knowing smile told him something else: Here was a woman who knew how to handle a painful situation such as his. Literally handle it. The merry twinkle in her eyes – hazel-green – hinted at the same.

Making her acquaintance seemed a sensible thing to do.

Beneath the veil of her hat, a wavy stand of rich brown hair loosened from its mooring and drifted across her sculpted cheek. With a flick of her wrist, she swept it away.

Preston sensed she would sweep him away too, the very distraction he needed today of all days.

Goddamn it! He was a hard-working sea captain, not some gentleman of leisure. What the devil was he supposed to do now that his schooner had sunk – sit around with a thumb up his ass?

A sea captain without a vessel…a man without a woman …Preston could use an activity to forget both those sad conditions.

And just like his cock, he came up with only one.

Chapter Two

Stop chucking those bananas at me before you hit me by mistake with one. Hear?

My ears are just fine, Mr. Timmons. Thank you ever so much for inquiring. But you are the one mistaken here. Had I wished to hit you with the bananas, I would have done so already. My aim is always true.

Two-seconds shy of giving the obnoxious marketing agent a piece of her mind, Emmaline took a deep and calming breath.

Her temper abated. Somewhat. But if this employee of her Grandfather’s company continued to provoke her, she would not be held responsible for her actions.

Lord! Timothy Timmons – or Tim-Tim, as she liked to call him in her thoughts – was as irritating as a fruit fly, those tiny winged bugs that swarmed bananas. Only, he was far from small. The lout was double her size.

No matter. Her rapier-sharp tongue could cut him down to size quick enough. Thus far, at least, she had resisted doing so.

Uppity bitch, Tim-Tim spat. Someone needs to slap you into your proper place. Do you know who I am, gal?

That does it!

Emmaline clenched her fists, ready to swat the irascible scoundrel where he hulked like a hirsute giant, all beard and brawn, and mushy bananas for brains.

She had met enough misogynistic bigots to know he was but one of a legion who hated her on sight. Not on principle. These individuals had none of those. Those same unprincipled men made no bones of mentally undressing her, then looking her over as if she were up for bid on the auction block. She could sniff out their stench at a mile. They disgusted her.

This employee of her grandfather was not of their ilk. Tim-Tim was simply an idiot. She would try to educate him to his failings, save words like bigot and misogyny would sail right over his simpleton head. As she would waste political banner waving on him, Emmaline bit her tongue against her militant suffragist rhetoric in favor of saying sweetly – and with just a touch of unjustified humility:

"I know exactly who you are, Mr. Timmons. As the marketing agent to fruit buyers here at the warehouse, you are a valued employee of Brewster Tropical Fruit. And with a few minor tweaks in your presentation, you would make an outstanding representative of the company."

"Who are you to tell me how to do my job? You think I give two shits what you think, gal? I think not!"

And, if Tim-Tim actually could think, he might very well give two shits upon hearing her identity.

She squared her shoulders. Mr. Timmons, I am the granddaughter of Mr. Zachariah Brewster. That is who I am.

"The Zachariah Brewster, of Brewster Tropical Fruit, my…my…boss?"

One and the same. Though it took all her fortitude, she refrained from smiling smugly as he blanched beneath his beard. And, as I am here in Mr. Brewster’s stead, you actually work for me today, Mr. Timmons.

The marketing agent doffed his filthy cap. I meant no disrespect, ma’am.

Indeed, Tim-Tim did. But rather than call him on it, rather than tell him he had better improve his condescending attitude or he would find himself out on the street, hat in hand, she accepted his poor excuse of an apology with a dip of her fashionably coiffed head. Then, she straightened the severe line of her blue walking gown. The bunched peplum jacket had gone all askew with her banana tossing.

Oh, to once again live on the shores of Jamaica, where heat made a good excuse for fewer layers of clothing. Multiple petticoats were the scourge of womanhood. At her next suffragist meeting, she would say so, then she would recommend adopting the ‘artistic’ mode of dressing, a more natural and figure-revealing silhouette…

But – that was later. She had another task to accomplish now:

Building up Tim-Tim in his own eyes.  

I have high hopes for you, Mr. Timmons. I believe with a little effort you could… She swallowed her bile. …excel within my grandfather’s company.

Yes, ma’am.

As I am a spinster, you may refer to me as Miss Valette or simply Miss. Not gal. Never gal. In written correspondence, please insert my first name as well. That is, Miss Emmaline Valette. And, by the way, on those occasions when a situation warrants a personal visit from me to this warehouse, I expect to find you adequately groomed. That means freshly shaven, washed, and attired in appropriate clothing, not in that foul smelling coat you presently wear.

In my opinion –

Emmaline held her hand high, palm outward. "Shush, Mr. Timmons. I have not yet given you leave to speak and I will never, I repeat, never, ask for your opinion. You are only digging yourself a deeper grave here. In a very limited capacity, you have been entrusted with my family’s financial interests at the Boston Fruit Company, and you are to act, dress, and speak accordingly. Can you do that, Mr. Timmons?"

Yes, Miss Valette. He tilted his head. That there name is French, ain’t it?

Half-French, she corrected in her thoughts, and that information was none of Tim-Tim’s business.

With her nose in the air, she ignored his personal question. Now, as I was saying…upon my spot inspection of the crate, I came upon several spoiled bananas. The bunches, themselves, were inadequate both in size and in fruit count. I expect to see at least nine hands in each bunch, and I expect each individual banana to be lovely and full. And the skin just beginning to turn yellow, not long since brown.

For demonstration purposes, she reached into the crate for one of the many examples of poor quality produce.

The agent ducked. Big baby.

For goodness sakes! She was trying to save his position. Any more mistakes like this last one and his wife and brood of six children would go hungry. It was for their sake she even bothered. Unskilled positions like his were desperately hard to find on the waterfront. All Tim-Tim had to do was check the bloody fruit and cull the bad stock. Was that so difficult?

See here, Mr. Timmons? She held up another rotten banana. This specimen will not command top dollar in the marketplace. Fruit graders might even reject the entire shipment outright, sight unseen. If that happens, my family’s company will incur a significant loss of revenue. What is worse, the business will receive a strike against its name.

A name she had no legal rights to, Emmaline was quick to remind herself.

Now what do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Timmons?

Rivalry between tropical fruit plantations is getting fierce, Miss Valette.

Which would explain her grandfather’s recent purchase of additional acreage abutting his existing plantation in the Port of Antonio, where he aimed to control all aspects of banana operations, from growing to selling. A fleet of steamers for the transportation end of things was also necessary. Unfortunately, those ships and their captains were scarce commodities.

As in none.

Into the foreseeable future, there were no steamers available to take on the present business of Brewster Tropical Fruit, never mind expansion. Without steamers, her grandfather’s banana operation would fall into bankruptcy.

Not if she could do something about it.

The first step in remaining solvent was to project a can-do image amongst all Brewster employees, herself included. Despite fierce rivalry, Mr. Timmons, Brewster Tropical Fruits will succeed in the changing marketplace.

Yes, Miss Valette.

Bananas are highly perishable and require a speedy delivery to market. We cannot have them spoil on sweltering loading docks while waiting for transportation, now can we?

Yes, Miss Valette.

She gave him the eye.

Correctly interpreting her glance for the admonishment it was, Tim-Tim shook his head. I mean, no, Miss Valette.

Poor grade fruit defeats our mission of ensuring an excellent product. The company name stamped on each crate must signify quality.

Yes, Miss Valette.

Henceforth, I expect to see first grade fruit, not second or third rate, in each and every one of these containers. She dropped the spoiled banana back inside the crate, slammed the cover shut, and flung her soiled gloves on top. This fruit will go to one of our charitable concerns, preferably one involving children. Little ones love bananas, even overripe ones.

Yes, Miss Valette. I will see to it.

"Remember this – take pride in who