Page 3 of The Pirate's Stolen Bride
Rémy pointed across the hallway. She gave a small nod to indicate she understood. He needed to escape, which meant he had to get across the way without being seen.
She ought to alert the Riders to his presence, but the geese hadn’t liked them and therefore neither did Harriet. Nor did she appreciate the menacing way they surrounded her uncle. Uncle Monty was starchy and sometimes got his dander up over inconsequential things, but he was a good man who had cared for her like a father. She didn’t know Maggie well, but she trusted a local to know who was in the right.
Perhaps this Rémy person hadn’t done anything wrong. They were treating her uncle like a hardened criminal, when he was obviously innocent of any crime, which did not inspire her confidence in Leacham’s judgment.
She therefore did something so entirely out of character that later, she would hardly believe herself capable of it. She ambled back to the bar, pretended to stumble, and accidentally-on-purpose knocked the entire stack of tankards onto the floor. They hit the ground with hollowthunksand rolled underfoot, tripping one of the Guardsmen and dropping him onto his bottom.
Harriet clasped her hands over her ears, wincing at the noise.
From there, all hell broke loose. One of the men pulled his pistol and aimed it at Uncle Monty. A large man, presumably the owner of the Cock and Bull, with Maggie trailing behind him, shouting toget this lot out of my damn tavern this instant. The Excise Officers did not oblige him.
More tankards kept falling onto the floor, bouncing and rolling every which direction. Harriet danced backward several steps to avoid getting her toes smashed by a falling cup—until she backed right into another person.
An arm like an iron bar around her waist lifted her off the ground. Harriet squeaked. Her protest was muffled by an equally large hand clamped over her mouth. Her back pressed flush against a man’s muscular chest. He didn’t smell like the aristocratic men she was used to. She caught a whiff of salt and a hint of bay rum.
“Stay quiet. You’re coming with me,” he said in accented English.
No,Harriet tried to scream, but Rémy dragged her into a closet and bolted the door from the inside. Before she could properly inhale, he tossed her over his shoulder and started down a staircase cut into the stone at the back of the room.
Unbelievable. She’d helped him, and he was kidnapping her!
CHAPTER TWO
IN WHICH EVERYONE IS CONFUSED
You’d think rescuing a lady from a marriage she clearly didn’t want would be met with a bit more gratitude. Instead, Rémy’s captive kneed him in the stomach and abused his kidneys with her fists.
Women.
He was of half a mind to swat her bottom, but he had his hands full trying to navigate steep steps with a squirming captive draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“What are you doing—put me down, you—youscoundrel.”
Rémy was only too happy to oblige once they reached the boat waiting for him in the cliffside cavern below the inn. She was a petite little thing, but strong for her size.
“Quest-ce que c’est?” asked the man waiting for him.
“A guest,” Rémy answered in English, eschewing his native French. “She’s coming for a tour of theSpectre,aren’t you, Miss…?”
He didn’t even know her name.
All he knew was that the writhing woman he deposited in the bottom of the boat had bright hazel eyes that sparked with fury, and the most fascinating constellation of freckles on the apples of her cheeks. He could study her stars all day.
“You must let me go at once,” she demanded.
“It’s too late for that, Miss…” he prompted again. This time, she answered.
“Turner. Harriet Turner. My uncle is Lord Montague, the Duke of Acton, and he will not allow this insult to go unpunished.”
Just his luck to have kidnapped a fine lady with powerful relations. The sooner he got out of Cavalier Cove, the better chance he had of keeping his head. Rémy coiled thick rope. “Benoit, best be going.”
“Se cacher sous,” the Black man pointed to a canvas sailcloth in the bottom of the fishing boat. “You should hide. The girl, too.”
Miss Turner wasn’t going to like that very much. Too bad. He’d done the ungrateful wench a favor. The pensive look on her face when she’d said,I am to be married. He’s taking me to Ireland,told him everything he needed to know about how this woman felt about her upcoming nuptials.
He’d stolen her away from the fate she clearly dreaded. A little insurance never hurt when making one’s escape—Rémy wasn’t an altruist or anything ridiculous like that. He was a scoundrel. A scallywag, and proud of it. He smuggled French finery aboard a fast, sleek ship, theSpectre, cutting through the waves of the English Channel by moonlight—and quite successfully, too. He had a tidy sum set aside for the day when he might want to settle down.
Not that he would ever want to settle down. He wasn’t envious of his cousin, Thierry Desmarais, who had married a pretty spinster the year before and now had a tiny infant daughter, Lilou. Thierry had lost his touch when he became besotted with a plucky wallflower. Granted, Adeline was as fine a wife as any man could want. If one wanted a wife, which Rémy did not.
