Care and Feeding of Pirates Read Free Page B

her feet
and turned to face the intruder.
    Diana stood on the threshold in a green silk
dressing gown, her red hair hanging over her shoulder in a long
braid. She held a pistol in one firm hand was pointing it straight
at Christopher.
    Honoria stepped in front of him, her legs
barely supporting her, her throat aching and tight.
    "It is all right, Diana," she said clearly.
"He is my husband."
    *** *** ***
    "I still do not understand," the red-haired
woman called Diana Ardmore said. She touched the creased piece of
paper that Honoria had given her, which proclaimed that Christopher
Raine and Honoria Ardmore had been married in Charleston, South
Carolina, on the Eighth of November, 1809.
    Christopher drained his whiskey and carefully
set the glass on the dining room table. He'd always heard that when
ladies had something to discuss, they brought out the tea. The
woman who'd married James Ardmore had gone straight for the
whiskey. She'd made Honoria drink a slosh as well.
    Honoria had taken one sip, set the glass
down, then held on to the arms of the slender-legged Hepplewhite
chair on which she sat as though she were on a ship about to go
down.
    She refused to look at Christopher. Or Diana,
or the license. But here was a fact. Honoria had kept the license.
She even carried it about with her.
    Honoria's black hair tumbled loose, a curl
snagging on the clasp of her dressing gown. Half dressed and
mussed, she looked good enough to eat.
    Christopher had been following her all
evening. When he'd seen her emerge from the theatre, he'd wanted
nothing more than to sprint across the cobbles, snatch her up, put
her over his shoulder, and carry her off. She was his wife. They
could find some cozy inn where they could settle down and become
reacquainted.
    He'd discovered this morning the whereabouts
of the house in which she stayed on Mount Street in Mayfair. The
house belonged to one Admiral Lockwood, whose daughter, Diana, had
actually married James Ardmore. Unbelievable.
    It had been simple to slip into the house and
quietly climb the stairs to Honoria's bedchamber while the ladies
consumed coffee in the drawing room. Christopher had easily deduced
which bedchamber was Honoria's--the painfully neat one with every
book lined up on the shelves, her pens in an exact row in her pen
tray.
    Christopher had truly meant only to speak to,
to break it to her that he was still alive. But watching Honoria
enter the room and undress with the help of a sharp-faced maid had
sent his blood into high temperatures. He'd been surprised the
curtains he'd stood behind hadn't bulged out with his sudden
cockstand.
    After the maid departed, Honoria had sat at
the desk, posture correct, primly writing in her journal. She'd
scratched in it for a while before lifting her head and staring off
into the distance.
    Her lips had parted, her cheeks coloring, and
Christopher had hoped to God she'd not been thinking of Mr.
Temple-Toes, or whatever his name was, whom she planned to
marry.
    Talking had been suddenly out of the
question. Christopher had emerged from the window embrasure,
determined to go to her, pull her head back, and kiss her until all
thoughts of Mr. Toodlewink had been erased from her mind.
    Honoria had risen, seen him, faced him, and
demanded to know what he was doing alive. But her kisses were as
sweet as Christopher remembered.
    He wondered if Mrs. Ardmore would have shot
him if he hadn't let Honoria go. The look in that lady's gray-blue
eyes said very probably.
    Christopher answered her, "It was a condemned
man's wish. The chaplain who visited the prisoners was a romantic.
When I told him I wanted to marry Honoria, he pulled strings to get
the license, and he married us. The next day, I was taken out to be
hanged."
    "Which, presumably, you weren't," Mrs.
Ardmore said.
    "I was let off at the last minute. But the
magistrates feared they'd cause a riot if they made my reprieve
public, so they put a hood on the next man in line for the noose
and told the