Sparhawk's Angel by MIRANDA JARRETT Read Free Book Online

the captain. Damnation, why did she have to hit him before the entire crew?
    "Insolent creature," he said sharply, loud enough for them all to hear. "I should have you strung up for that."
    But she was still too furious to care. "I'll do it again if you dare touch me!"
    "Damnation, I had to know if you were flesh and blood!"
    Her silver eyes flashed her scorn. "Whatever else would I be? Tea cakes and India tea?"
    "Nothing half so sweet, I'll wager." If he wasn't careful he'd be babbling next about seeing angels in his cabin. "Good day to you, ma'am, and back you go to your ship."
    "Not yet, I'm not." She gave a little shake to her fingers, still smarting from the impact of slapping him. She might as well have struck a rock covered with nettles as this man's face. "And you've absolutely no right to be issuing orders to me."
    "You forget yourself, ma'am, just as you forget that I'm the captain of this vessel."
    "You're not
my
captain." She glared up at him, wishing he'd back away. He was still too near for her comfort, his sheer size and undeniable maleness a more potent threat to her equilibrium than the pistols thrust into his belt or the sword at his waist. No wonder she was finding it so difficult to behave in a reasonable fashion. "And I'm not yet a married woman, so I'll thank you to stop calling me 'ma'am'."
    "
Miss
Everard, then. Why am I not surprised,
Miss
Everard?"
    Rose flushed. "Where is Captain Fotherill? I wish to speak with him so we might settle this business directly."
    Nick made a rumbling noise deep in his chest. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't any business left to settle, except to send her back to the other ship. "You'll have a blessed hard time of it. Fotherill's dead."
    "
Dead
?" repeated Rose incredulously. "Captain Fotherill's dead?"
    Nick looked down his nose at her, satisfied that at least in this he'd have the final word. "Aye, miss, dead and gone with the fishes."
    "Oh, the poor man!" She had met Captain Fotherill only once, on the day the
Angel Lily
sailed, but though she hadn't known him well, she did regret his death, for it was going to make her task that much the harder. "Poor Captain Fotherill!"
    "Poor man, hah," said Nick contemptuously. "Fotherill took a dozen of my lads when he died and a share of his own with them. More than a score of good men lost because your blessed Fotherill preferred to waste his powder on long shot rather than haul in and close for a decent hand-to-hand."
    "I see," said Rose, though she didn't. "What have you done with the rest of the Englishmen? You didn't kill them all, did you?"
    "I'm a privateer, ma'am, not an executioner, no matter what you English might think. When I sent my own sloop into Charles Town for repairs, they took Fotherill's men to the prison there."
    "Charles Town?" she echoed faintly.
    "Charles Town," he repeated firmly. He was explaining too much, more than she deserved. Blast the woman, he was beginning to chatter as much as she did. "In South Carolina. Where, I can assure you, your countrymen will be a sight better cared for than the Americans your King George has taken."
    "They're traitors," she said defensively. "They're treated as they deserve. Or have you forgotten that my king was also yours not so long ago?"
    "I remember it every morning upon waking, ma'am, and thank the Lord for change." He smiled, pleased he'd discovered exactly the way to irritate her the most. She looked a hundred times more appealing with that flush in her cheeks, and it would be a perverse challenge to keep it there. "That could be why so many of Fotherill's old crew decided to toss in their lots with us. A taste of our kind of freedom can do that to a man. Or does that make them traitors, too?"
    She took a deep breath, wishing he hadn't smiled and confused her wits. "I'm not going to quarrel over politics with you, Captain Sparhawk. You'll believe what you please because, after all, you're a rebel, too."
    "Thank you," he said dryly, reaching for her elbow