A Pirate of her Own Read Online Free PDF Page A

swear the old woman’s eyes gleamed with appreciation.
    “I’ve seen men like him talk a woman out of her virtue countless times,” Mrs. O’Grady warned. “Be too late for you when it’s done. Your father will have your head over this. Just see if he doesn’t.”
    “You’re quite right, Mrs. O’Grady,” Serenity agreed. “Men are the blight of the world and hazardous to all women.”
    Morgan lifted his brow at her words. Even though she spoke with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, he didn’t like being called the blight of the world.
    “I was just escorting him to the door when you arrived.” Serenity shoved his hat into his hands and eyed the matron, who was scowling at the two of them. “It was a pleasure to meet you, sir, and I’m grateful for your sense of humor, but I must be going.”
    With an expediency that astounded him, he found himself back outside in the drizzling rain, standing next to his two men. A moment later he watched while Serenity and her sister were whisked away by the speeding brown coach.
    “Well, Cap’n?” Barney asked as rain dripped off of his brown-colored tricorn hat and into his face. “Did you find out about that there paper story?”
    Dumbfounded, Morgan could only stare after the departing coach. Never in his life had he been dismissed so easily. He found it downright…humbling.
    Infuriating!
    How dare she dismiss him as if he were nothing but a nuisance! Women had fainted at his mere presence. Fought one another for just a smile from his lips.
    By God, kings had begged for an audience with him. A sultan had even offered him his daughter’s hand. And this little chit had rushed him out into the pouring rain without so much as a by-your-leave.
    Remembering her words about his hat and its precarious perch, he jerked it down low on his head. “All right, Miss Serenity James,” he said as her coach disappeared from his sight. “When next we meet it’ll take more than your sister and a scowling Irish biddy to protect you.”

Chapter 2
    “Beg pardon, Cap’n?” Barney asked with a serious frown. “What scowling Irish biddy do you mean?”
    Angry at Serenity, her chaperone, himself, and the reminder that his men had disobeyed a direct order, Morgan glowered at Barney. “What in Triton’s hell are the two of you doing here?”
    Kit turned a bright shade of red and Barney drew himself up to the full five feet six inches of his height.
    “Why, we’ve come to help you, Cap’n,” Barney said with a wide smile that showed off the gap between his two front teeth. “Thought you might need a good pirate sword to silence the tongue of that thieving dog what went and wrote about you in his story.”
    Growling low in his throat, Morgan knew all too well that nothing short of bloodshed would intimidate Barney. “How many times do I have to tell you that we’re not pirates?”
    “Right,” Barney said with a conspiratorial wink. “I know we’re not pirates.”
    Morgan wanted to throw up his hands in defeat. With Barney practically bragging they were pirates, it was only a matter of time before someone believed the old sea dog and hung the lot of them.
    If you had any brains about you at all, you’d throw the old barnacle and his bird off the ship at next sail.
    But no matter how angry Barney made him, Morgan could never do that. Nay, he owed the old man much more than could ever be repaid.
    If not for Barney, he would never have survived his years of imprisonment in the British navy. And though Barney’s grip on reality was sometimes shaky, the old man had a generous heart.
    “So Cap’n, do we drop that there blooming writer into Davy’s Locker?” Barney asked.
    “Nay,” Morgan said quietly, even though he did rather enjoy the idea of Miss James walking the plank. Perhaps a mouthful of seawater would quiet the wench. “It turns out that the he in this case is a she . And I shall deal with her in my own way.”
    Thunder clapped above their heads and the slow drizzle