The Pirate Lord by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online

relieved, he went on. “Barnaby, find out all you can about the ship—what guns it carries, its dimensions…anything we need to know to take it. And for God’s sake, try to be subtle about it. Luckily, we’re moored in another harbor, but do what you must to keep the Chastity ’s crewmen from hearing that a pirate ship’s in port.Keep them drunk, even if you have to pay for their drinks the whole night. We don’t want to spook the prey.”
    As Barnaby hurried back toward the docks, he turned to Silas. “Round up the crew. Tell them we sail at first light, and I want them on board tonight.” When Silas bobbed his head and started off down the rock-strewn path, Gideon called out, “And make sure they know why, so they don’t curse you for it.”
    After they were gone, he gazed down at the harbor to where a ship with a demurely draped female figurehead squatted in the water. The Chastity . It had to be. Though he saw no sign of the women, he imagined they were kept in chains below when they were in port.
    The Chastity ’s crew was scrambling about, obviously eager to finish furling her sails before they went in to Praia to drink and gamble and whore. Good. With any luck, they’d play right into Barnaby’s hands.
    He assessed the ship as best he could from the distance. Square-rigged, three-masted…and obviously sitting heavy in the water. He didn’t see many guns from here, and he counted twenty-odd crewmen, far less than the sixty-three men in his company. He couldn’t ask for an easier prize.
    Ah, yes . A smile touched his lips. You’re a beauty, my dear, and carrying a very valuable cargo. It’ll be like plucking grapes off a tree .
    He could hardly wait for tomorrow.
     
    Petey climbed out on the royal yard, his body performing the task of furling the sky sail. But his mind lay elsewhere, on the puzzle that was Miss Willis.
    Two weeks had passed since his conversation with the little miss, and she still insisted that he look after the women every night. She’d even convinced the captain to put him on duty there permanently. He’d hoped he could stop once the men realized he meant business,but Miss Willis didn’t trust anybody, that one. She wanted him there every night.
    Wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, Petey threaded the line through the block and inched back along the royal yard. It wasn’t as if his lordship hadn’t warned him that the miss would be a mite troublesome. Petey had known to expect that. At least she’d held to her part of their bargain. There’d been no more confrontations between her and the sailors, thank God. It almost made up for the sleepless nights he spent, watching after the women on the orlop deck.
    Actually, it hadn’t been so bad, leastways, not after the first night. The first night, the women had been a mite wary of him, and the children had stared through the bars, all goggle-eyed to see a sailor hook his hammock up betwixt the cells. It hadn’t been a quiet night, neither. Sailor after sailor had stuck his head in at the hatch, though the captain had commanded them to stay above decks unless they had business below. Once they’d understood that Petey intended to make them follow captain’s orders, they’d stopped trying.
    After that night, the women had suffered his presence in silence. Some had even ventured to thank him. Indeed, there was one little lass, a sweet young thing named Ann, who’d offered him some of her supper. Considering that the women made better use of their rations than Cook did, he’d been happy to take a bit.
    Of course, the crew resented his interference, but he didn’t care. His real employer, the earl, was paying him three times his pay as a sailor. For that sum he’d fight the lot of them if he had to.
    Thankfully, he’d only had to trounce one man, and the man had been drunk. Though the other sailors had tried to make his life a misery, what they thought would be misery to him wasn’t. The first mate sent him