Never Trust a Pirate
Read Never Trust a Pirate Online
Authors: Anne Stuart
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical romance, #Victorian
A
LSO BY
A
NNE
S
TUART
H
ISTORICALS
S
CANDAL AT THE
H
OUSE OF
R
USSELL
Never Kiss a Rake
T
HE
H
OUSE OF
R
OHAN
The Wicked House of Rohan
Shameless
Breathless
Reckless
Ruthless
S
TAND
-A
LONE
T
ITLES
The Devil’s Waltz
Hidden Honor
Lady Fortune
Prince of Magic
Lord of Danger
Prince of Swords
To Love a Dark Lord
Shadow Dance
A Rose at Midnight
The Houseparty
The Spinster and the Rake
Lord Satan’s Bride
R
OMANTIC
S
USPENSE
T
HE
I
CE
S
ERIES
On Thin Ice
Silver Falls
Fire and Ice
Ice Storm
Ice Blue
Cold As Ice
Black Ice
S
TAND
-A
LONE
T
ITLES
Into the Fire
Still Lake
The Widow
Shadows at Sunset
Shadow Lover
Ritual Sins
Moonrise
Nightfall
Seen and Not Heard
At the Edge of the Sun
Darkness Before Dawn
Escape Out of Darkness
The Demon Count’s Daughter
The Demon Count
Demonwood
Cameron’s Landing
Barrett’s Hill
C
OLLABORATIONS
Dogs & Goddesses
The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes
A
NTHOLOGIES
Burning Bright
Date with a Devil
What Lies Beneath
Night and Day
Valentine Babies
My Secret Admirer
Sisters and Secrets
Summer Love
New Year’s Resolution: Baby
New Year’s Resolution: Husband
One Night with a Rogue
Strangers in the Night
Highland Fling
To Love and To Honor
My Valentine
Silhouette Shadows
C
ATEGORY
R
OMANCE
Wild Thing
The Right Man
A Dark and Stormy Night
The Soldier and the Baby
Cinderman
Falling Angel
One More Valentine
Rafe’s Revenge
Heat Lightning
Chasing Trouble
Night of the Phantom
Lazarus Rising
/ reprint as
Here Come the Grooms
Angel’s Wings
Rancho Diablo
/ reprint as
Western Lovers
Crazy Like a Fox
/ reprint as
Born in the USA
Glass Houses
/ reprint as
Men at Work
Cry for the Moon
Partners in Crime
Blue Sage
/ reprint as
Western Lovers
Bewitching Hour
Rocky Road
/ reprint in
Men Made in America #19
Banish Misfortune
Housebound
Museum Piece
Heart’s Ease
Chain of Love
The Fall of Maggie Brown
Winter’s Edge
Catspaw II
Hand in Glove
Catspaw
Tangled Lies
/ reprint in
Men Made in America #11
Now You See Him
Special Gifts
Break the Night
Against the Wind
N
OVELLAS
The Wicked House of Rohan
Risk the Night
Married to It
(prequel to
Fire and Ice
)
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
ISBN-13: 9781477849118
ISBN-10: 1477849114
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911410
For Sabra Jones and the Greensboro Art Alliance and Residency, with thanks for all the fun and sheer joy you’ve brought to my life
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Somerset, 1869
M
ADDY
R
USSELL CURLED UP
on the window seat in Nanny Gruen’s tiny, spotlessly clean cottage on the very edge of the former Russell estate in Somerset, looking at the drizzling mist of a spring day. Somewhere, a mile away, lay their country house, Renwick, a place of considerable beauty that had once been her haven when things were bad. Things were bad now, but the house was no longer theirs. It had reverted to the Dark Viscount, as her younger sister, Sophie, liked to call him, and if he knew that two of the daughters of the house’s former owner were hiding at their old nanny’s cottage he’d soon put a stop to it. In fact, he didn’t even have to honor the gift of this small house to the Russells’ retired retainer, but so far he had. He could always change his mind.
Nanny Gruen sat across from her on the faded sofa, her eyes focused on her needlework, but Maddy had no illusion that this was an easy silence.
“You’re the most hardheaded girl I’ve ever known,” Nanny Gruen said. “What happened to my sweet little Maddy?” she added plaintively, finally looking up at her former charge, all five foot seven of her.
Maddy grimaced. “Your sweet little Maddy had a father who absconded with a huge sum of money and then abandoned his three daughters, leaving us penniless, disgraced. I’ve been deserted by my worthless fiancé, my older sister, Bryony, has disappeared with only a cryptic note, my younger sister does nothing but complain, and I refuse to sit around and wait for things to happen, not any longer. Since Bryony’s run off with the Earl of Kilmartyn, it’s going to be up to us to find out who framed our father and murdered him, because that fall from the cliffs in Dartmoor was no accident. And right now it’s going to be up to me.”
“And what is it you’re thinking of doing, missy?” her old nursemaid demanded. “Running off and getting into trouble, that’s what I call it.”
“We are already in trouble, Nanny,” Maddy said in a deliberately calm voice. “And sitting around on my posterior isn’t going to make things any better.”
“Miss Madeleine!” Nanny said, shocked. “A lady doesn’t talk about her… her limbs.”
“My posterior is not a limb, Nanny. It’s my backside.”
Nanny shrieked, putting her hands over her ears. “Your sister will hear you.”
“I did hear her, Nanny,” Sophie called from the tiny kitchen where she was currently experimenting with scones. “And she’s right.”
“Don’t you be using such language, Miss Sophia,” Nanny said sharply.
Sophie appeared in the doorway. She was coated with flour—Sophie didn’t consider her cooking adventures successful unless she ended up wearing half of her ingredients. “You don’t really think you’re going to follow Bryony.”
“Of course not!” Maddy said. “We can assume the Earl of Kilmartyn had nothing to do with Father’s disgrace and death since Bryony appears to have run off with him instead of finding proof of his guilt. That leaves Captain Morgan and Viscount Griffiths.”