The Buccaneers' Code Read Free Page B

lined with stained-glass windows and pushed open the heavy door of her father’s study. No one had dared to use the room since Admiral Westfield had been marched off to the Royal Dungeons; even the maids hadn’t been bold enough to enter. Cobwebs dimmed the light that came through the windows, all the nautical instruments lining the walls had wound down ages ago, and the drawers full of charts and maps were preserved under a thick layer of dust. Theadmiral’s chair, however, was pushed back from his desk at an imperfect angle, as though he’d simply stepped out for a moment to stroll in the gardens or chastise his officers. Every so often, a clock in the far corner let out a half-hearted tick.
    Admiral Westfield had left his desk unlocked, and Hilary rummaged through it as quickly as she could. In the topmost drawer, behind a small golden spyglass and a thick card pinned with rows of iridescent moths, she found a battered pen, a bottle of ink, and a faded old map of the Southlands coast; they would do, she thought. The admiral would most likely be furious if he discovered the map was missing—but then, Hilary reminded herself, he wouldn’t be able to discover any such thing while he was safely imprisoned in the Dungeons. The clock ticked again. “NO VISITORS TODAY,” she wrote on the back of the map, doing her best not to smudge the ink. “AND PLEASE, NO MORE PIRATES.” Then she signed her name with a flourish, recapped the ink bottle, and slammed the desk drawer shut, sending the spyglass and the moths clattering back into the darkness.
    By the time Hilary had slipped out of the study and returned to the front hall, she’d managed to brush most of the cobwebs from her coat. The gargoyle looked on as she tacked her sign to the front door of Westfield House. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is who placed that notice in the newspaper. It must have been someone whowants you to lead the VNHLP.”
    â€œOr someone who wants to blacken my name even more than it’s already been blackened.” Hilary stepped back to examine her handiwork. “I hope Captain Blacktooth doesn’t subscribe to the Gazette. I can’t imagine what he’ll do if he sees it.”
    â€œ I can imagine,” the gargoyle said, “and it’s not a pretty sight.”
    Hilary’s makeshift sign seemed to be effective, for no pirates interrupted her lunch or the rest of her sword-fighting practice. When the drapes had become more holes than velvet, she curled up on the drawing-room floor with a thick and discouraging book Miss Greyson had loaned her called Common-Sense Tips for the Freelance Pirate. She had barely read past the first page, however, when a commotion rose up from the front hall.
    â€œI’m terribly sorry,” she heard Bess say, “but Pirate Westfield isn’t accepting visitors. It says so right here on this sign.”
    â€œBut she’ll want to see us ,” someone said with great confidence.
    The gargoyle’s ears pricked up. “More pirates?” he asked.
    There was a flurry of footsteps, followed closely by an enormous bang.
    Hilary didn’t quite understand what was happening, but she was certain of one thing: the drawing-room door,which had been resting peacefully on its hinges, was now barreling through the air and heading in her direction. She grabbed the gargoyle and ducked under a table as the flying door sailed over them, collided with the wall, and crashed to the floor. “Horsefeathers!” someone cried from the hallway.
    Hilary stood up. “That’s not pirates,” she said to the gargoyle, who was shaking like a small earthquake in her arms. “That’s Claire.”
    Like an actress late for a performance, Claire Dupree hurried into the room. She was wrapped in a long woolen coat and an even longer striped scarf, and she gasped when she saw the door lying in the middle of the room.