Lord of Devil Isle Read Online Free PDF Page B

so.”
    “There’s your difficulty, Miss Upshall. You’re laboring under the misapprehension that I’m a gentleman when I’m only a humble sailing man.” He grinned wickedly. “And one who knows full well you’ve naught beneath your skirts but a pair of fine long legs.”
    She fumed, but he smiled at the memory of her kicking beneath the yards of muslin as she was hauled aboard. He turned his back to her while he fastened thedrop front of his britches. It might hurt his argument that he was sufficiently covered if his cock tented his long shirt toward her.
    “Humble sailing man.” He heard her mutter behind him. ”There’s nothing the least humble about you.”
    He decided to ignore the jab. “Now what’s so urgent for three young ladies of good family in the Carolinas?”
    “Our weddings, sir, if that’s any of your business.”
    When he turned to face her again, she was studying her folded hands, settled neatly on her lap.
    “My companions and I are all engaged to marry gentlemen of property.”
    “Really? And where did you meet these gentlemen of property?
    “We haven’t. Not yet, in any case.”
    “Then how did these astounding engagements come to be?”
    She rolled her eyes at him. “Our marriages were arranged, of course.”
    “I’ve been to the Carolinas,” he said. “They suffer no shortage of women there. Why do these gentlemen need to drag you and your friends across the Atlantic?”
    “Perhaps the colonial women there will do for most men, but these are men of distinction who want their wives to be English-born,” she said primly. “They wish to make certain their children have the proper sensibilities, closer ties to England and the Crown.”
    Nick laughed. “There are plenty in the Colonies who don’t give a flying fig for the Crown.”
    She blinked hard, shock registering on her features.
    “Surely you’ve heard of the agitators, the patriots, they call themselves?” Nick couldn’t believe the Colonies’ unrest wasn’t common knowledge in London. “There’s a rat’s nest of them up in Boston, but their words are flyingfrom printers’ presses up and down the Atlantic seaboard, spreading sedition like cankerwort seeds.”
    The colonists’ quarrel with the Stamp Act, the tea tax and laws requiring them to quarter British soldiers had smoldered for the last decade and now threatened to erupt into real violence.
    But not everyone suffered for it.
    By rights, Nick should kiss the feet of King George and his heavy-handed parliament. Laws requiring the colonists to trade only with England had made Nick’s smuggled cases of French wine and Caribbean rum ridiculously lucrative.
    A little rebellion was good for business.
    “How can they sanction such treason?” She shook her head in wonderment.
    “They don’t see it so. They claim to want representation since they’re subject to taxation.” Nick frowned. Why was he talking taxes with a delightfully wet woman? Still, he felt bound to warn her that life in the Carolinas might not be what she was expecting. “It’s not everyone, of course, but there are those who would cut all ties with the old order and launch out on their own.”
    “Surely the King’s loyal subjects will not allow such a thing to happen.”
    “Loyal subjects like your prospective husband?”
    “Exactly. Mr. Smoot Pennywhistle, Esq., of the Carolinas, gentleman and planter. He’s even a deacon in the congregation near his home.” She reached for the locket at her throat and popped open the compartment to gaze at the miniature inside. Her features fell. “Oh, it’s ruined.”
    “If you will allow me?” Nicholas held out a hand. She unclasped the locket and dropped it into his palm. The tiny painting was smudged and waffled from itsexposure to seawater, but he could still make out the profile of a bewigged gentleman with a hefty set of jowls.
    Nick knew the type. Pasty-faced, dissipated with too much food and drink, and satisfied to luxuriate in the