My Seaswept Heart Read Free

am?”
    “You’re a pirate,” Anne responded without
pausing to consider the consequences.
    “Aye, ’tis the truth. A freebooting buccaneer
who doesn’t go about doing good deeds for sweet young things such
as yourself.” His expression changed. His eyelids lowered. “Unless,
of course...” he said, then paused. “What manner of payment did ye
have in mind?”
    “I had thought you might be persuaded out of
the goodness of your heart.”
    This brought a spat of fresh laughter, which
even the blackamoor joined.
    “A pirate doesn’t have a heart, Mistress
Cornwall. You best remember that.”
    “I shall attempt to do so.” Anne flattened
her palms on the scarred tabletop. This wasn’t going at all as
she’d envisioned, but if she could only tell him. “If you would
give me but a moment, sir, to explain what has happened.” She
leaned forward, forging ahead before he could say otherwise. “Our
island was raided, ravished really, by—”
    “Penitence from God!”
    Anne stood up in shock. It was the one-eyed
man in black who spoke, yelled actually, and he now looked at her,
his expression bright with righteous indignation.
    “Now, Deacon.” The captain’s hand clasped his
shoulder. “I doubt the lass has done anything to bring the wrath of
God tumbling down upon her.” One brow, dark like the whiskers
covering his lower face, lifted. “Have ye now?”
    “No!” Anne turned her attention back toward
the captain, though she was uneasily aware of the man he called
Deacon. “And I doubt anyone would liken Willet d’Porteau with
God.”
    “The Frenchie,” the blackamoor said, then
shared a look with his captain that Anne didn’t understand.
    But the very mention of the name seemed to
sober the captain. His chest, barely covered by a linen shirt open
to the waist, expanded as he sucked in a breath. Then he leaned
back and steepled his fingers. “Count yourself lucky that you can
stand here before me if Frenchie d’Porteau attacked your
island.”
    Her voice was somber. “Some cannot.”
    Anne thought she saw a flicker of sympathy
cross those blue-green eyes before he reached for his tankard.
After a long gulp he lowered it to the table with a slam.
    “’Tis no business of mine what the Frenchman
does.”
    “I thought him your enemy.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Where would you hear such
as that?”
    Anne shrugged. “It’s not difficult to know.”
Actually it was Israel who told her. “The two men hate each other.
A long-standing blood feud.” Israel said those words one afternoon
as they sat on the beach. Anne, thinking as she always did of the
destruction and pain caused by d’Porteau mused aloud that her
uncle’s settlement needed a savior. Someone strong enough to go up
against Willet d’Porteau and his crew.
    Her first reaction was shock when Israel
suggested a pirate might be that savior. “I can’t imagine what is
in your head. Pirates are the bane of our existence.”
    The old man only shrugged. “Some folk say
takes an angel to fight the devil,” he said, taking his knife from
the thong about his waist and tossing it blade first into the sand.
“I say it takes a stronger devil.”
    As it was Israel convinced Anne that Captain
James MacQuaid was more fallen angel than devil, and she’d believed
him... until now.
    The captain leaned forward till she could
smell his musky scent. “’Tis your time you’re wasting.”
    “It’s mine to waste.”
    “Aye, but mine is not.” He lifted his tankard
in dismissal, seeming surprised to find her still standing on the
opposite side of the table when he lowered it. “Be gone with ye
now, wench. I’m sorry for your troubles but they’re not mine.”
    “But if you’d only listen.” Hope gave way to
despair. “He came to our island and stole and killed.” Anne
swallowed, unable to say what else he’d done. “He took my cousin
and he swore he’d be back. He swore it on my uncle’s blood.” Anne
realized her voice had risen and