Never Trust a Pirate Read Free

clear spring day, though the weather was crisp, and the breeze blew the salty smell of the ocean straight to him, a taunt from his jealous true love. It had been too long since he’d been out to sea. Ever since that bastard Russell had pulled him off his ship he’d been landlocked, and he cursed the lying, thieving old man every chance he got. Not that he hadn’t managed to profit in the end. He’d spent his twenty-nine years surviving one disaster after another, always coming out on top, as he had this time. With most of the assets of Russell Shipping disappearing into thin air the solicitors had had no choice but to put the few remaining resources, including the ships, up for sale, and he’d managed to buy two of them and was in negotiations for a third. It didn’t hurt that his fiancée’s father and his firm were in charge of settling Russell’s disastrous estate.
    And now negotiations were almost settled, and the
Maddy Rose
was almost his. All they had to do was find one of Russell’s daughters to sign off on it. Every time he thought about the ship he felt a totally unaccustomed emotion swell inside him. The lines, the speed, the sheer beauty of the ship owned him as nothing else could. He’d sailed on many vessels, steam and sail, and commanded a large portion of them, but none of them moved him as the clipper ship did.
    It was strange. He was used to lust stirring his privates, anger making his head pound, laughter in his belly. But his feelings for the
Maddy Rose
were in between, somewhere in the area that a heart was supposed to reside.
    He didn’t have one, of course. Oh, the thing still did its job, thumped obligingly in his chest, but he’d stripped that body part of any feelings when he was seven years old and his stepfather had sold him to Morris the Sweep, who’d run the chimney sweeps. Eight pence had been his worth, and the old man had starved him. Luca was no use as a climbingboy if he was too big to fit in the chimneys, and he spent endless years edging his way up and down the innards of the chimneys of rich, happy families in their rich, happy houses. By the time he was twelve he looked half his age, covered with burns and the mark of the lash.
    He’d run away, of course, and kept trying till he succeeded. Tried to run back home but his family had already moved on, as the Travelers did. His gypsy heritage was in his face, his dark skin and eyes, curling black hair always filled with soot. His heritage was in his soul as well—rebellion and a determination to escape had always burned bright in him.
    He should never have expected his mother to save him. He’d been born from a previous marriage to a non-gypsy, a
Gadjo
, an Englishman who’d given him his height and little else. His mother’s second husband hated him and the reminder that he wasn’t Anselina’s first. Luca shouldn’t have blamed her for letting him go—he knew how heavy his stepfather’s fists could be. But he did.
    He’d escaped Morris as soon as he was big enough to fight back, taking his friend Wart with him. Together they’d become the finest child pickpockets in London. They’d serviced gentlemen when they were starving and found their way into many a wealthy household in the middle of the night to relieve them of whatever silver they could carry. So the life of a pirate had been a natural move for him.
    It hadn’t started out that way. It had never been his idea to go to sea—the Rom had a natural aversion to it. But he’d been taken up one night when he hadn’t run fast enough—coshed on the head, and when he’d woken up the next morning he was already in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
    It still made him laugh to remember how sick he’d been those first weeks. He’d spewed all over himself, the sailor who had kidnapped him, and the burly captain whenever they got close. Eventually there was nothing left to spew, and he lay in the small hammock they’d rigged up for him, stinking of