Never Trust a Pirate Read Online Free Page A

city—she had to be imagining her danger.
    “You’re going to let me pass and leave me alone.” She raised her voice, sounding so calm it steadied her.
    “Oh, I don’t think so, lass. Anyone knows you don’t wander around these parts if you’re not looking for making a little money on the side.”
    “She’s pretty,” the big man said.
    “That’s the truth of it, Barney, old boy. Much too pretty for the likes of us, but who’s to say we should look a gift horse in the mouth? She’s here, we’re looking for a bit of sport, and we all know no one interferes with what goes in these dockside alleys.”
    Dockside? They were near the harbor then, and there would be people nearby. “If you don’t move aside I’ll scream,” she said sharply.
    “No one will care.” They were getting closer, and she could feel some of her self-assurance fade. “Pretty thing like you—you were asking for it, that’s what we’d say. Or maybe we won’t have to say anything at all, maybe you’re just going to disappear. I know someone who’d pay good money to take you far away from here, sell you to some of them heathens who like white skin. Too bad you’re not a blonde, but you’d still fetch a pretty price.”
    She started to back away from them. She could always hit one of them in the head with her valise, but it was far too light to do much damage. All right, so she’d miscalculated, and she hadn’t been paying proper attention. She’d had instructions on how to get to Captain Morgan’s house, instructions she’d merely glanced at and arrogantly assumed that had been enough. She was going to have to run for it, and while she could probably outpace the big one and the old one, the scarred one looked far too eager.
    He was moving in on her, and one of his hands reached down and cupped the front of his filthy breeches suggestively. “You want to beg for mercy, little girl? I’m afraid I’m all out.”
    “I want her first,” the big man said in a plaintive whine.
    “You hurts ’em too much, Barney,” the old man chided. “You get her last. Once you’re done with them they aren’t much good to anyone for a long time.”
    She was going to throw up. Right there in front of them. In any other circumstances it should have filled them with disgust, but these depraved creatures would probably enjoy it.
    “Say ‘please,’ girly,” the scarred man taunted.
    She was almost at the corner of the alleyway. Just a few more feet and she could make a run for it. “Please,” she said in a soft, breathless voice. “Please…”—her voice hardened—“go sod yourselves.”
    She spun on her heels, swallowing her fear. Something grabbed her sleeve, and she heard it rip as she yanked away. Her valise went flying. A moment later her arm was caught in a grip so painful she felt as if her bones were being crushed, and she was being dragged back into the alleyway. She opened her mouth to scream, but a filthy hand slapped over it, silencing her. She fought—kicking, hitting, clawing with her hands, though trapped in her cheap cotton gloves she couldn’t do much damage. She managed to move her knee up sharply, hitting the big man in the groin, and he went down with a comically high-pitched scream of pain, writhing on the ground.
    For a moment she was free, but she was so shocked that what her former maid had described to her had actually worked that she didn’t move fast enough, and then another of them caught her, spinning her around and shoving her up against the side of a building, her face pushed against the crumbling brickwork as she felt someone fumble with her skirts.
    “I think you’d better get your hands off her, boys.”
    The voice came from out of nowhere, and for a moment Maddy thought she’d dreamt it. Except that those crushing hands had immediately released her, and she pushed away from the brick wall, trying to catch her breath as she pulled her bonnet more tightly on her head.
    “We weren’t doing no