Prisoner of Desire by Mary Wine Read Free Book Online

drove her heart faster.
    Because all too soon that might end. Adam Mordaunt might very well be the image of Godford.
    Her coming marriage yet another life filled with duty and strict expectation. Keeping hope close to her heart, she looked out to sea, refusing to dread the future.
    Hope was all she had and she discovered it comforting.
    Three weeks later.. .Bermuda
    The island had been a paradise until the British began laying their fort on it. Warren stared at the faint outline of its tree-covered surface. He could almost taste the suffering on the wind. At the very tip of the southern end of the island, thick walls rose above the trees. Every brick was carved out of limestone by forced labour. Convicts and prisoners of the British working like slaves to build a fortress which would ensure British power on the sea. With a fortress at
    Bermuda, their ships could harass Americans without fear of running out of supplies.
    His brothers were there. He felt it in his gut. Hidden behind the walls, Garrick and Harrison were waiting for him, waiting for rescue. Royal marines patrolled the walls, their rifles slung on their shoulders. The gates were guarded by cannon and the men working those weapons protected by
    heavy limestone blocks. The strings of men laying new walls were chained together with leg
    irons. For anyone brought to the fort in chains, it was a horror beyond words, the sheer height of the walls pressing helplessness down on them.
    The sun was sinking low. They'd sailed in closer under the cover of darkness and rowed the last mile by hand in a lifeboat. The walls were incomplete, giving him a way to enter the island fortress. He'd have to swim in and find a way to conceal himself among the inhabitants. An
    assault was out of the question. The Huntress could never take the fort alone.
    But he'd never let the odds stop him before. No captain worth his rank did. Cunning could net you the prize if you were willing to pit your wits against the enemy. A grin lifted his lips. He was going to use that British arrogance against them. Slip in under their noses and find a way to gain his brothers' freedom. He would find the means, any one that presented itself.
    He swore it.
    "She's pretty."
    Lorena paused on the stairs which led to the command deck. No one spoke to her. After so many days with only her own company, listening to conversation was becoming attractive.
    "Never you mind about that. She's going to be the commissioner's wife. Mordaunt isn't a man to cross."
    "Well, she is pretty." It was the youngest officer talking. He was little more than a boy. His family must have purchased his commission in the royal navy. He wore the coat of an officer and every sailor working on the ship was expected to tug his cap in respect when he passed.
    "Pretty has nothing to do with it. She has a dowry worth quite a bit. A share in the St. John shipbuilding yard, I hear. I wish I'd known she was ripe for wedding. I'd have set my father to trying to gain her."
    Her throat tightened. She hadn't thought upon it. Her place aboard a crown vessel suddenly made itself clearer. She was little more than cargo. Her enjoyment of the voyage died in a sizzle of temper. Men were cruel creatures.
    Indeed they were.
    "Bastard," Harrison Rawlins muttered under his breath. "British arrogant bastard."
    "But a smart one."
    Harrison looked up, half-afraid the heat had succeeded in driving him insane. He blinked, unable to believe Warren stood in the stone barracks he was imprisoned in.
    "Holy shit. How did they take you?" Garrick growled and surged to his feet. A clatter of iron against iron bounced between the walls.
    Warren glanced behind him at the main doorway, but his luck held and the guards were too busy escaping the midday heat to bother looking in at them. Sweat ran down his face but it was worth it. The stone bunker his brothers were kept in felt like the mouth of hell. A single door in the front did little to cool it. Six feet long with a low