Reid Burns stiffened when he heard the princess, who was supposed to be unconscious, shouting and banging on the door, demanding an audience. The first mate shot his captain a wide-eyed, surprised look.

“Are you sure she was unconscious, Captain? She sounds both awake and thoroughly upset to me.”

Gage looked just as stunned as Reid felt that the Princess was awake.

“If ye don’t quiet down and stop battering my door, ye won’t be seeing anyone for quite a long time,” the captain shouted.

“Bollocks!” The slightly profane response surprised both Reid and Gage.

Reid leaned his shoulder against the door and grinned over at the captain. “Are you sure we kidnapped the princess, Captain? Sounds like a tavern wench on the other side of this door to me.”

“Excuse me?” Her voice was hot with indignant reproach. “I know that a couple of low-life pirates are not presuming to judge a member of the royal family, whom they happen to have kidnapped!”

Gage roared with laughter and motioned for Reid to open the door so they could continue their discussion face-to-face. The first mate gave the door a powerful warning thump with his fist.

“If you want an audience with your captors, I’d advise standing back, unless you’d like the door to wallop you when I open it.”

Reid was all too familiar with the spoiled little rich girl type. He’d been engaged to one such high society prude before she and her family decided he wasn’t quite rich enough for their taste, and she went after his best friend, instead. Reid Burns was wealthy in his own right, and a Lord, but he left all that behind and sought out a life of piracy in the wake of his devastating public humiliation at Chantelle’s hands. In Reid’s mind, he was immune to noblewomen of any kind.

In reality, the fiery-haired beauty who stood glaring at him when he opened the door made his heart stutter. He drank in every inch of her, from the incensed flush of her pale cheeks to her more than ample heaving bosom. She was petite, but her green eyes held a fierce challenge that warned him she was not to be taken lightly. Those wily eyes darted back and forth from Reid to Gage, and he could see she was calculating her chances of escape.

“Don’t even think about it, Princess,” Reid scoffed.

“Think about what?” Brynne snapped, her tone defensive and disdainful all at once.

“You were considering trying to escape,” Gage drawled with a broad grin. “Ye’ve no poker face at all, lass. You give your thoughts away easily, and without so much as opening that pretty little pouting mouth.”

Something about the captain noticing the princess’s lips and finding them pretty rankled a bit with Reid, and he did his best to squash the feeling. Gage was a good man and a good captain, and Reid knew how fickle noblewomen were prone to being. Besides, the princess was unlikely to engage with them in any way that wasn’t adversarial, since they were basically holding her for ransom. Even if she did want to engage with one of them in a more romantic sort of way, it would most likely be Gage.

Gage was tall and lithe, fair-haired and blue-eyed. Women swooned over him everywhere they went. Reid, on the other hand, was of average height and stockily muscular, with swarthy skin, dark hair, and dark, brooding eyes. The two men were opposites in almost every way, and Reid found that most women tended to go for the tall, charming blond captain rather than his quiet, unassuming first mate.