The Pirate Next Door by Jennifer Ashley

Author:Jennifer Ashley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Mr. Henderson was pacing the oriental carpet in the front reception room, his head down, his hands behind his back. He wore his usual subdued black suit, looking once again like a vicar without a collar. Fading bruises outlined his left eye and the left side of his mouth.

He looked up as Alexandra entered. His eager smile froze when Jeffrey stopped beside her with the iron poker in his beefy hand.

Alexandra gave him a cold stare. “You are not welcome here, Mr. Henderson.”

Mr. Henderson held his white-gloved hands palm out. “I give you my word, Mrs. Alastair, I did not come to harm you in any way.”

“What am I to think, sir? Our last two meetings caused me much harm. What will you do to me this time whilst apologizing for the previous two indignities?”

He winced. “I promise—on my honor as a gentleman—I am quit of Captain Ardmore and his schemes. I told him so. Any moves against you will be made without me.”

“I am not certain that comforts me, Mr. Henderson.”

“What I mean to say is that I want to keep you from all harm. He has no right to pull you into his games with Finley.”

“Viscount Stoke,” she corrected.

His expression turned pained. “Captain Finley is nowhere near good enough for you. He is a barbaric pirate who has not set foot in England since he was a lad of twelve. He sees, he wants, he takes. He does not abide by any rules but his own.”

So she had noticed. “His lineage is an old and respected one,” she pointed out. “Or he would not have become the viscount.”

“He may have the family connections, but he knows nothing of our world. His parents died violently—I do not know the story, but I know that his mother was murdered. He ran away to sea right after—can’t really blame him.”

“Yes, I had heard that.” He was confirming Mrs. Tetley’s rumors. She imagined a young lad, no older than Maggie, confused, heartbroken, utterly shocked by his sudden and terrible loss. Her heart wrung for him.

“He had no upbringing at all,” Mr. Henderson went on. “Unless you count being captured by pirates and trained to be one of them an upbringing. I, on the other hand, stayed safely in Kent and went off to Oxford.”

“I come from Kent,” Alexandra replied, for something to say.

“You see? I am English through and through. Finley, for all he is a viscount, is an outsider all the same.” He paused. “You would not happen to have heard of the insignificant village of St. Mary’s Newbridge, would you? My family has a house near there.”

She blinked. “Good heavens. I lived only two villages away, in Little Marching.”

His smile beamed, wide and straight-toothed. “We are neighbors then. I know Little Marching well. I visited my cousins there in the summers, and we made nuisances of ourselves chasing sheep and clambering about in the mud. Do you remember Fox Hollow?”

Her caution thawed slightly. “I do, indeed. I learned to climb trees there.

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