The Pirate's Duchess: A Regent's Revenge Novella by Katherine Bone Read Free Book Online Page A

rage. The very idea that she would become a tenant for life with the son of the man who’d tried to kill him was despicable enough. But his best friend? Of course, none of it would’ve mattered if he were dead. He simply wasn’t.
    “Basil is a good man. I owe him more than you will ever know.”
    He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more, yet he asked, “How much?” He dreaded the answer. Had she and Markwick made love?
    She glanced away, her gaze focusing on something in the distance. “He took it upon himself to watch over me after . . .”
    “Go on,” he said, desiring to know more—and abhorring himself for it—hoping her feelings for his childhood friend leaned more toward obligation than love.
    She said nothing more. The unsettling pause made it hard to swallow. Sink and scuttle me . . . She was acting as if he had come to ruin her life, not save it.
    “My return has wounded you?”
    She craned her head toward him again, her eyes shooting daggers. “Some wounds never heal.”
    “But some do,” he immediately told her. He should know. He’d experienced his fair share. “Talk to me. Tell me what you are thinking.”
    “Right now?”
    “Yes.”
    She leaned her head against his chest, angling her face up to the angry sky as the first drops of rain began to fall. “I’m trying to decide whether to allow you to remain alive or to put you back in your grave.”
    He doubted she’d get the chance. If Underwood’s men reached them before he got her to safety, they could both end up in the ground or upside down in the river. “Someone may beat you to it.”
    “You aren’t suggesting . . .?” She released a sob. “Basil would never—”
    “Not Markwick. Underwood. Men do contemptible things when they are backed into a corner, Prudence.”
    She elbowed him in the ribs. “You sicken me.”
    “I’m a realist.” He hadn’t returned to make amends, no matter how tempting Prudence might be. Underwood wasn’t insolvent . . . yet. Tobias had become the personification of depravity, becoming more like the marquess than he’d like to admit, successfully carving fear into the hearts of weaker men, with one exception. He stole back what Underwood, and men like him, had taken from innocents. Roman walls surrounding Exeter couldn’t keep him at bay and he wouldn’t rest until justice reigned.
    “You are heartless!”
    His heart beat more vigorously. He felt alive now that she was in his arms.
    Bang!
    Prudence’s blood-curdling scream joined the echoing gunfire.
    Bang!
    He jerked, grunting as a searing pain exploded through his leg. Manfred rose up on his hind legs, nearly unseating them both. A thunderclap fractured the sky, the flash of light blinding in its intensity. Prudence screamed again, clawing for a handhold. Tobias clenched his teeth and worked to regain control of the reins, knowing he was the only thing keeping Prudence from falling to her death. He tightened his grip around her waist as the clouds opened, releasing a torrential rain. He kicked Manfred into a run and changed course, heading straight for the Dennys’ cottage.
    “We should have taken the carriage,” she shouted. “It isn’t safe.”
    A groan escaped him. “Perhaps,” he said, trying to ignore the pain searing his thigh. “What’s done is done. We cannot turn back time.”
    He leaned into her stiff unyielding body, taking refuge against her, fascinated and eager to learn more about the woman he’d abandoned, longing to confide his dark, unfathomable secrets to her, to escape the pain vying for control over his body. Would she believe him, forgive him for the atrocities he’d committed against her? Would he survive long enough to get her to safety?
    He had only one regret: not telling her how much he loved her before he’d left.

 
     
    FOUR
     
    Revenue officers report an awkward BUNGLING of events, a deplorable ENCOUNTER resulting in another CALAMITOUS entanglement with the BLACK REGENT. Verified sources at