Tangled Hearts Read Online Free PDF

onto land. She yelped and turned, but he caught her before she’d taken two steps. He swung her up into his arms. Totally unwarranted!
    “Ye tricked me. Into giving ye my oath for a suicide mission!”
    She wasn’t sorry. Now that Rowland Boswell was dead, she had no other options. She’d already wasted a week in England traveling inland and waiting for a useless father. The smithy’s cousin who washed the linens of the damned at the tower said that the next hanging fair was just before Eastertide. Which meant she only had a little over a week to buy, trick, or rescue Captain Bart and Will out of the tower. They were truly her only family now.
    “You did swear on your honor as a warrior,” she reminded him as he deposited her on the bed. Her heart sped along despite her ignoring the fact that he loomed over her on the very comfortable, large bed she’d been sleeping in. His chest moved in and out, presumably with fury, since his hard body couldn’t possibly be winded by the climb.
    His ruggedly handsome face came near to hers. “I swore to take ye to London and help ye with family issues. Not put my head in a noose.” He backed away looking around at the shadowed room as if searching for a way to escape. “Bloody hell. Ye’re not only a witch, a Catholic, an heiress, and a pirate. Ye’re bloody insane, too.”
    Uncalled for, but she’d let him have his rant. She watched his muscles bunch as he flexed his shoulders like he was preparing for a fight. He was like a snorting bull in a Spaniard’s ring, readying to charge.
    “Rescuing people from the Tower. It isn’t done. Has never been done.” He paced across the floor and she scooted to the edge of the bed, facing him. She didn’t dare blink, else she miss his intent, and nearly jumped when he pulled flint from his pocket to strike at a rush light near the empty hearth. A soft glow illuminated the room as he lit several tallow candles in sconces along the walls. The portrait of a lady and her baby daughter over the mantle seemed to catch the warrior’s attention. The painting was the reason Dory had chosen this room to sleep in.
    Ewan paused, taking in the beautiful likeness done in oils. Dory breathed fully, thankful for the distraction, at least for the moment.
    “She looks so happy, doesn’t she?” Dory said. “Holding her baby.”
    Ewan pivoted and strode back over to her. “She was burned on false accusations of being a witch, her daughter lucky to have survived.”
    She swallowed and blinked at the burn in her eyes.
    “Which is exactly why ye can’t work yer magic where anyone can see ye or even think they see ye.” He rubbed a hand through his hair as if he wanted to pull it from his head.
    “I will keep my side of the bargain,” she said, her voice low.
    He shook his head. “Who are these men that ye would risk so much?”
    “Captain Bartholomew Wyatt kept me alive when my mother died on his ship. He raised me as his own when he could have sold me into slavery. Will is my friend.”
    “Why are they in the Tower?”
    “It’s a long story.”
    “One I deserve to know before I risk a single hair on my head.”
    “’Tis a very noble cause.”
    “Noble? Ye’re pirates. How is that a noble cause?”
    “We are good pirates.”
    “Doesn’t exist. The very definition of piracy is criminal.”
    “In a world that doesn’t offer options, it’s making a living.”
    “Killing and stealing.”
    Granted there had been some of that in her time on the Queen Siren, though Captain Bart usually locked her in his cabin when he knew there would be trouble. She looked hard at the warrior, her gaze tracing the lines of his scars. “I’m guessing you’ve done your share of killing and stealing, warrior, or did you get those fine scars from needle pointing tuffets?”
    Ewan met her stare, his voice low. “I will get ye to London and find ye a bed, even get ye an audience with King Henry if I can, but when my business there is done, ye are on yer