Page 10 of The Pirate's Stolen Bride
“I suppose you think I should be thanking you for ruining my life,” she grumbled.
“You should have seen your face. You looked like you were being sentenced to hang. Moments later, you swept a stack of tankards to the floor, creating a distraction for the handsome scoundrel you’d just met to escape. What was I supposed to think?”
He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back, with one brow arched and a smirk on his stupidly attractive lips.
Harriet would bet her best bonnet that Rémy didn’t have rancid breath and missing teeth. Oh, wait, her best bonnet was lost to the sea, thanks to him.
Your own clumsiness was the real fault,whispered her conscience. Her innate lack of physical prowess had hindered her in ballrooms, where she was forced to think about each dance step. No matter how many hours of instruction Uncle Monty provided, she never quite managed to achieve gracefulness. She couldn’t help but be impressed by Rémy’s rangy athleticism.
“You were supposed to take the opportunity I’d given you and escape, you idiot.” Fascination was not the same thing as admiration.
“Which I did. I merely assisted you with escaping a fate you clearly dreaded as a gesture of my appreciation.” He sat forward. “You’re welcome.”
His tone strongly implied that she was being an ingrate.
Harriet pressed her lips into a flat line and pounded his shins with her bare feet. The horrible man didn’t even flinch.
“You’re hurting yourself more than you are me,” he said mildly.
“Augh!” She smacked the table with her open palm, rattling the tea set. “I did not want or need your intervention, Rémy. I was fortunate enough to find an Irish earl willing to marry me, and now, unless Lord Lucarran is of a forgiving nature”—which he was not, in her limited experience—“there will be no repairing the damage to my reputation if word gets out that his bride was stolen by a pirate.”
Rémy snorted. “You weren’t lucky to land a lord. You were lucky I stole you away from that tosser.”
The infuriating, arrogant…ooh, shehatedhim. Mostly, she hated that he was right. Uncle Monty was the one who cared about a man’s title. Not her. She’d simply gone along with his plan because she felt she had no choice.
If her reputation was ruined, she would have even less choice.
“I will thank you not insult my future husband in my presence,” she said primly. Or as primly as one could when one is wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket.
“Why are you defending him?”
“Why are you insulting him? Has Lord Lucarran personally wronged you? Stolen your ship, perhaps?”
Rémy’s lips flattened. “I told you I don’t take other ships as prizes. I am not, despite your obstinate insistence, a pirate. I am a smuggler.”
“And proud of it.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a criminal, no matter which word you choose to describe yourself.”
He shrugged. “I’m not hurting anything but Mad King George’s coffers. Why should goods be so heavily taxed that only the wealthy can afford them?”
Harriet didn’t have an answer to that. Her needs and most of her wants had always been provided for. Hadn’t she thought more or less the same thing, back in the tavern?
“The man you’re marrying. Is he the same Lucarran who hasn’t set foot in Ireland in at least a decade?”
“Until now,” Harriet protested. “He wanted to introduce me to his estate manager.”
“The same Lucarran whose high rents squeeze every farthing out of the land to support his lavish lifestyle in England?”
“I fail to see how I am responsible for the way an earl manages his affairs.” She clutched the blanket tighter. “I am not the one who makes decisions about estate management.”
“But you will benefit from his pillaging of the poor.”
Apparently, Lord Lucarran was notorious. Wonderful. Undoubtedly, Uncle Monty would have been aware of Lucarran’s reputation when he made the betrothal arrangements. Was he simply too enmeshed in high society to care about how one of his peers treated those less fortunate?
That didn’t sound like the Uncle Monty she knew and loved. He had a complicated relationship with his title, but he wasn’t callous. Perhaps he didn’t know. Ireland was far away from Acton Heath, and her uncle wasn’t one to comment upon other people’s private business.
