My Bonny Heart (Pirate's Progeny Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

point, Sarah. Now, is this where I’ll be living? Do you have any letters for me?” She was anxious to see what her father would be instructing her to do.
    “Aye, Mrs. Morgan.” She paused to rub her chin, eyeing her again. “You’ve more children before becoming a widow.”
    The only way her infamy would disappear was to keep the truth hidden. Swallowing the truth she wanted to tell, and not wanting to lie to the old girl, Anne responded, “Yes, I have been blessed with two children.” She eyed Sarah with intent.
    Sarah pointed at the two baskets. “There’s two babies there. A young lad upstairs. That makes three.”
    Anne ground her teeth together. This was going to get messy trying to explain Freddie to everyone, but she’d not lie about it, not completely.
    “Oh, aye. The baby girl was my dear friend’s daughter. We were with child together. Sadly, she died after childbirth, and I promised to care for her daughter.”
    Sarah stared from one basket to the other, to Raphael, and then to Anne. She was an astute, bright woman, and determined. If she were to object to the strange persons in her entryway, Anne would not have blinked an eye. But, Sarah shrugged, then turned to the staircase on their left.
    “Up those stairs, first door on your left is your sitting room. Attached to that is your bedroom.” She turned to look up at Raphael. “You will find a room down the stairs outside, and through that door at the bottom. Or, you can go through the dining room through those double doors and down the servants’ stairs. There’s an empty room at the end of the hall.”
    She reached for the basket he carried. He placed it in her wrinkled hands, nodded, and left with a determined stride through the double doors.
    Anne stared up the staircase, at a loss for what to do. Her pulse pounded an erratic beat, but a scream of excitement and fear lie just beneath the surface. Her father had always tried to give the best to his family, but never this splendid or extravagant. The Cormacs were not royalty by any means, but he’d made a success of himself and his trading business in Charles Town. Had he made so much in these short years to pay for all of this?
    She frowned.
    Just as William Cormac was making that fortune, Anne remembered with a guilty twinge, she had married James Bonny. And, on their wedding night, James had spoken with a cruel sneer of his love of men. Then, he disclosed his plans of inheriting her father’s acquired fortune. Her father refused to help her out of the rash decision she’d already made. So, she’d done the only thing she could think of to get her father to disinherit her . . . she fell in love with a pirate and ran off with him.
    Jack Rackham.
    Love.
    It was hard to believe the two had been synonymous with one another at one time.
    Love was the beginning of a wild existence, and the cause of her predicament in Port Royal.
    She focused on Sarah’s stern face before her temper began to simmer remembering the time she’d wasted for love.
    But, she’d not trade places with anyone. There were three beautiful children that came out of her escapades. And, one she hadn’t hugged or comforted for three years.
    “Well, go on, then. Go see your room. We’ll find a room for the babes.”
    “My son?” Anne hoped he was close.
    “The boy? He’s most likely playing upstairs with the nursemaid, Eliza. You’ll find the nursery across the house, opposite from your bedroom.”
    “I’d like to see him now, please.” Anne took the basket and crossed the room to the staircase on the right, almost tripping over her feet as she moved with haste.
    Holt was here, and safe, and hers.
    Tears burned her eyes as she reached the top of the steps and heard voices, that of a woman and a young child. She rushed to the second door on her right and turned the knob.
    “Horse!” A boy shouted enthusiastically as he looked at the miniature figure the small, older woman held in her hands. Her tanned face widened