Care and Feeding of Pirates Read Online Free

crowd and the newspapers he was me. He went out in a
blaze of glory. Poor bastard."
    Diana shifted the baby on her arm. He was
asleep, as limp as only a baby safe in his mother's arms could be.
Men slept like that after making love. There was something about
cradling oneself on the bosom of a beautiful woman that gave a man
over to peaceful slumber.
    "Then what happened to you?" Honoria asked,
the first words she'd spoken since they'd come down here.
    Christopher turned his glass on the table,
the facets throwing spangles of light onto the dark wood. "They
tied my hands and slipped me out the back to a cart. I still
thought I was on my way to be hanged, because I hadn't heard of the
change in order. But things got quieter, and I realized we weren't
anywhere near the gallows. When the cart finally stopped, I was
made to get into a longboat. The jailor with me told me that my
sentence had been commuted, but to keep it quiet. The boat took me
to a ship, and the ship put to sea."
    The baby moved his fist, and Diana absently
rocked him. "Where did you go?" she asked, quietly curious.
    "China." Christopher pulled the decanter of
whiskey to him and poured more amber liquid into his glass. "The
ship was a merchantman, and I worked as a sailor on it. I have no
idea whether the captain knew who I was. I climbed yardarms and
stood watches like one of the crew."
    Honoria managed a faint smile. "I'm surprised
you didn't try to take over the ship."
    "Would have, but I didn't have my trusted
crew, and the merchantman had a paltry haul. I didn't mind being a
common sailor for a while."
    Honoria said in her quiet, Southern tones,
"After the Rosa Bonita , I am certain every haul seemed
paltry."
    Christopher laughed. "Ah, yes, the Rosa
Bonita . The take of a lifetime."
    "I heard about that," Diana said. "The ship
was taken, the pirates who stole it vanished, and the gold was
never recovered. You were the pirate in question?"
    Christopher had suspected that the gold had
not been found, but he liked that Mrs. Ardmore confirmed the fact.
"Ardmore never found it?" he asked. "He's going soft."
    "James never looked for it, as far as I
know," Honoria said. "He didn't seem to care about it."
    "Is that why you've returned?" Diana asked.
"For the gold?"
    She was a woman who could keep to the point.
Christopher took a sip of whiskey. "I returned to look for my
wife." He let his gaze rest on Honoria.
    "Why were you let off?" Honoria asked,
flustered. "Did the governor decide to be lenient?"
    Christopher looked at her in surprise. "It
was your brother's doing. Ardmore got me released. He never told
you?"
    Honoria's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't
known. "No."
    "Interesting." Very interesting. "I'd have
sent word to you, but I couldn't." For many, many reasons. "Did you
ever tell Ardmore you married me?"
    The placket of Honoria's dressing gown had
parted slightly. She hadn't refastened it quite right, and the silk
gaped to show a curve of her bosom. "That is not exactly the sort
of information I could impart to James," she said.
    "He's your brother."
    "It's difficult to explain. We were never
close."
    No, but Honoria now lived with James's wife
in London. Christopher did not know the lay of the land here, and
he didn't like that. He had to tread carefully, and that wasn't
easy with Honoria staring at him while her pretty bosom rose with
her every breath.
    If he could have finished making love to her
upstairs, he could have sated himself and turned his mind quietly
to other matters. Instead, he was randy as a sailor who hadn't had
shore leave in six months. He was in a room with a beautiful woman
in dishabille, who happened to be his wife, and he had to sit on
the other side of a wide table and keep his thoughts at bay.
    He took another long drink of whiskey.
    "Why on earth would James save your life
anyway?" Honoria asked. "He arrested you in the first place. He
took the reward for your capture."
    "He owed me a debt."
    In truth, Christopher had been