The Pirate's Debt (The Regent's Revenge Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

been better for you if I’d left you behind, I simply could not do it. I depend on you, Jane. I hope that conveys the depths of my devotion.”
    Jane snickered. “By faith, ye could convince a rat to dance. In truth, I reckon ye only needed a maid to cinch your laces.”
    “Forget these trivial rags.” Chloe puckered her lips and swiped her skirts absentmindedly with her hand. “That is not the reason why and you know it.”
    Jane grinned mischievously. “Ye cannot fault me for pointin’ out your impious objectives. I know ye better than anyone, and don’t ye ever forget it.”
    Chloe had to agree. She and Jane had grown up together in the manor house. They’d spent countless hours avoiding Chloe’s governess, instead riding across the estate, pretending to escape specters from Francis Lathom’s The Castle of Ollada and flee from Scottish borderers in The Mysterious Freebooter .
    “Yes, you know me better than anyone, Jane. But I cannot go topside alone, especially when you are down here inhaling stale air. You are like my own right arm and deserve more than I can give you.” She frowned, hating the bureaucracy of rank and despising how fate toyed with social standing and human emotion.
    Chloe’s brother, Pierce—whom she addressed as “the Captain,” per his insistent request —had taught Chloe and Pru to swim in a most irrational fashion when they’d been young girls. What was one to do when one was thrown into a pond? The answer was easy: sink or swim. With enough sputtering and coughing, splashing and kicking, she and Pru had learned how to float and had become quite proficient at it. Though they both liked to joke about Pierce’s methods, Chloe was now thankful she could perform such a task. Jane, however, had not received the same instruction because she was a servant. Watching Chloe and Pru splash for their lives had ushered in a fantastical fear of drowning so intense that even Chloe’s attempts to teach Jane how to swim only increased the girl’s hysteria, a fact that she’d never let Pierce forget.
    “Come. I am quite content knowing that I am not alone in my pursuit of Markwick. And dear Jane, I have you to thank for that. In fact, if either of us has learned anything from my books, it is that every heroine must have a dutiful friend. Just as I aided the Duchess of Blackmoor, you are now my Bianca.”
    “I am ’onored to embody a character from one of your books.” Jane’s light and bubbly laughter brought a smile to Chloe’s face, though a hesitant spark still glinted in her eyes.
    “Then we are of one accord.” Chloe patted Jane’s hand. “We shall take a stroll about the deck,” she said, desiring to ease Jane’s distress. “It will be just as we’ve practiced, like a walk in the park, the two of us, arm in arm.”
    “You always ’ave a way of steadying my nerves, m’lady.” Jane shrugged into her pelisse.
    “I cannot abide a friend in distress.”
    “I am sure the Duchess of Blackmoor is equally thankful to ye for all you’ve done for her.”
    Chloe inhaled a sigh. “I pray that is so. She is ever so dear to me. I’d like to take credit for her current happiness.”
    “Need I remind ye that ye took little part in reuniting the duchess with ’er ’usband?”
    “Ha! There you are wrong, my fair Bianca. I helped Her Grace endure widowhood—however false her status was at the time—before she accepted Markwick’s proposal. And the pleasure was all mine, I assure you.” Even at the cost of losing Markwick forever, she’d willingly sacrificed her own happiness to see Pru smile again.
    Chloe donned her own pelisse, a forest green that matched the embroidered bodice and hem of her white gown, shrugging her arms through the sleeves. “I stood up for her at the wedding, as well. You should have seen me in action. When Blackmoor arrived, standing in the center of that ecclesiastical aisle, I felt certain that I was staring at a ghost straight out of one of my gothic