A Pirate’s Price

Stay

.. tsk tsk tsk.. careful now, you don’t want to make the wrong choices do you now?

Raine swallowed.

Anne had been abandoned on her doorstep almost a year ago to the day. At the time she’d thought that the baby had been left with her because Raine’s brother, Winter, ran the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. Now she wondered if there had been a much more diabolical reason. Fear that she was about to lose Darling Anne forever made her clutch the baby closer.

“You abandoned her upon my doorstep,” she tried.

He c****d his head, eyeing her with ironic amusement. “I left her with ye for her safekeeping”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why me?”

“Because.” He let his hand drop. “Ye were—are—the purest thing I’ve ever seen, me sweet.”

Her eyebrows drew together, confused. He didn’t make any sense, and besides, they’d wandered from the main point. “You don’t love her.”

he c****d his head to the side “No. But I’m a-thinking that don’t matter when ye do, Mrs. Wellingham.”

Raine felt the breath catch in her throat.

“Let me leave with her.”

“No.” he said simply

Anne squirmed again with one of those mercurial shifts of moods that toddlers are prone to. “Down!” Raine let her slip from her arms, watching as the little girl carefully stood against one of the huge trunks of booty. She looked so small. So precious.

“Why are you doing this? Haven’t you done enough to me in this lifetime?”

“Oh, not nearly enough, m’darling” Danny O’Connor murmured.

Raine felt more than saw him reach out his hand toward her. Maybe he meant to fondle her hair as he had Anne’s.

She jerked her head out of his way.

His hand dropped.

“What are you about?” She folded her arms and faced him, though she kept Anne within sight.

He shrugged, the movement making his shirt slip further off one muscled shoulder.

“A man in me position has many an enemy, I fear. Nasty, mean creatures who don’t let the thought of innocence or youth stop them from doin’ terrible, murderous things.”

“Why take her from me now?” Raine asked. “Are these enemies new?”

His mouth curved into another smile, this one entirely without humor. “Not at all. But me enemies have become more… er… persistent in the last month, ye understand. ’Tis merely a matter o’ business—one that I hope to soon tidy up. But in the meantime, should me enemies find the wee child..”

Raine shivered, watching as Anne grabbed for a dark fur and pulled it half out of the trunk. “Damn you. How could you have put her in this danger?”

“I didn’t,” he said without any signs of conscience. “I gave her to ye, remember.”

“And she was safe with me,” she said desperately. “What has changed?”

“They’ve discovered where she and ye live.”

She shifted her gaze to him and was disconcerted to find him only a foot away. The room was big, and besides Harry and the sweetmeats boy, a gang of pirates sat around Mr. O’Connor’s throne. Was he worried they’d be overheard?

“Let me keep her,” Raine whispered. “She doesn’t know you, doesn’t love you. If there’s truly a danger, then send men to guard her where we live, but let her stay at the home. If you have any decency in you at all, you’ll let her go with me.”

“Ah, love.” Danny O’Connor tilted his head, long coal-black locks of hair slithering over his broad shoulders. “Don’t ye know by now that decent is the last thing anyone would be a-callin’ me? No, the lass stays with me and me men, here where I can keep me eye on her night and day until I can put an end to this bit o’ bother.”

“But she thinks me her mother,” Raine hissed. “How can you separate us when—”

“And who said anything about separating?” Mr. O’Connor asked with feigned surprise. “Why, darlin’ I said the babe had to stay with me, I never said ye couldn’t as well.”

Raine inhaled and then found she had trouble letting the breath out again. “You want me to come live with you?”

Mr. O’Connor grinned as if she were a pet dog that had finally learned a trick. “Aye, that’s the way of it, sweeting.”

“I can’t live with you,” Raine hissed furiously. “Everyone would think…”

“What, now?” Danny O’Connor arched an eyebrow, his black eyes glittering.

She swallowed. “That I was your whore.”

He tutted softly. “Oh, and we can’t be having that, now can we, what with your reputation being all snowy white and all?”

Her hand was half-raised, the fingers balled into a fist before she even realized it. She wanted to hit him so badly, wanted to wipe that smirk from his face with all her soul.

Except he was no longer smiling. He watched her, his face expressionless, his eyes intent, like a wolf waiting for the hare to break from cover.

Trembling, she let her hand fall.

He shrugged, looking mildly disappointed. “Ah, well, it’d be a great inconvenience to have ye living under me roof anyway. I ’spect ye’ve made the right decision.”

He turned away from her, sauntering smoothly toward his throne. She’d been dismissed, it seemed. He no longer found her interesting enough to play with.

“In that moment, with rage and grief, and yes, love, swirling all inside, Raine made her decision. “Mr. O’Connor!”

He stopped, still turned rudely away from her, his voice a rumbling purr. “Aye?”

“I’ll stay.”