THE PIRATE LORD by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-25T23:56:08+00:00

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Chapter 15

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In spite of all romantic poets sing,

This gold, my dearest, is an useful thing.

—Mary Leapor, English poet and cook-maid

"Mira to Octavia"

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Crushing his hat in his hands, Petey hesitated outside the open enhance to Captain Horn's hut just after dusk. The place looked empty. It was dark as pitch, especially with only stars hereabouts to light the night. Should he knock? But on what? There wasn't any door. Even though the captain's hut was the best of them all, it still had no window shutters, nor a proper door with a latch. Was it any wonder the women didn't want to be living in these wee cottages?

The rest of the island wasn't so bad, however. He'd taken a stroll about today, looking it over. It was a right nice little bit of land. Something could be made of such a place, if somebody cared enough to do it.

But that wasn't his concern. Right now, what mattered most was why the captain had sent for him. It was a mite alarming, to say the least. Petey steered a wide path around the man as a general rule. The pirates had made it clear that Captain Horn was fair and not given to unreasonable punishments, yet there was no telling what the man would do now that he had his eye on Miss Willis.

Miss Willis. Petey groaned. The little miss had surely set the captain back on his heels today. Petey ought to be grateful to her for trying so hard to delay the weddings. After all, she did it to help him and Ann.

But she'd pushed the Pirate Lord to anger, and that didn't sit too well with Petey. A trickle of sweat rolled down his nose, and he wiped it away with his thumb as he peered cautiously into the ominous black hole of the hut. The captain was obviously asleep or gone. No point in staying here to risk angering the man even more.

He turned away, but just then a deep voice rumbled out of the hut's dark interior. "Don't just stand there, man. Come in."

Petey jumped, then gulped down his fear. Here he'd stood, hesitating like an ass, while the man had been watching him the whole time. That pirate captain was plain unnerving, that's what he was.

"I didn't see you there," Petey muttered as he entered the dark room.

No response. There was a scratching sound, a tiny spark, and then an oil lamp's low flame, which grew larger as the captain turned the wick up. Now Petey could see that the pirate stood beside a table. At least the man's saber appeared to be out of sight, which was exactly where Petey liked it.

"Take a seat, Hargraves." Captain Horn gestured to a chair, then picked up a bottle of what looked in the lamplight like rum. "Would you like to wet your whistle?"

Petey managed a nod. He needed something to get him through this. He didn't sit down, though. He didn't like to sit in the presence of his enemy, especially when that enemy was offering him strong drink.

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