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Authors: Anne Stuart

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical romance, #Victorian

Never Trust a Pirate

BOOK: Never Trust a Pirate
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A
LSO BY
A
NNE
S
TUART

H
ISTORICALS

S
CANDAL AT THE
H
OUSE OF
R
USSELL

Never Kiss a Rake

T
HE
H
OUSE OF
R
OHAN

The Wicked House of Rohan

Shameless

Breathless

Reckless

Ruthless

S
TAND
-A
LONE
T
ITLES

The Devil’s Waltz

Hidden Honor

Lady Fortune

Prince of Magic

Lord of Danger

Prince of Swords

To Love a Dark Lord

Shadow Dance

A Rose at Midnight

The Houseparty

The Spinster and the Rake

Lord Satan’s Bride

R
OMANTIC
S
USPENSE

T
HE
I
CE
S
ERIES

On Thin Ice

Silver Falls

Fire and Ice

Ice Storm

Ice Blue

Cold As Ice

Black Ice

S
TAND
-A
LONE
T
ITLES

Into the Fire

Still Lake

The Widow

Shadows at Sunset

Shadow Lover

Ritual Sins

Moonrise

Nightfall

Seen and Not Heard

At the Edge of the Sun

Darkness Before Dawn

Escape Out of Darkness

The Demon Count’s Daughter

The Demon Count

Demonwood

Cameron’s Landing

Barrett’s Hill

C
OLLABORATIONS

Dogs & Goddesses

The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

A
NTHOLOGIES

Burning Bright

Date with a Devil

What Lies Beneath

Night and Day

Valentine Babies

My Secret Admirer

Sisters and Secrets

Summer Love

New Year’s Resolution: Baby

New Year’s Resolution: Husband

One Night with a Rogue

Strangers in the Night

Highland Fling

To Love and To Honor

My Valentine

Silhouette Shadows

C
ATEGORY
R
OMANCE

Wild Thing

The Right Man

A Dark and Stormy Night

The Soldier and the Baby

Cinderman

Falling Angel

One More Valentine

Rafe’s Revenge

Heat Lightning

Chasing Trouble

Night of the Phantom

Lazarus Rising
/ reprint as
Here Come the Grooms

Angel’s Wings

Rancho Diablo
/ reprint as
Western Lovers

Crazy Like a Fox
/ reprint as
Born in the USA

Glass Houses
/ reprint as
Men at Work

Cry for the Moon

Partners in Crime

Blue Sage
/ reprint as
Western Lovers

Bewitching Hour

Rocky Road
/ reprint in
Men Made in America #19

Banish Misfortune

Housebound

Museum Piece

Heart’s Ease

Chain of Love

The Fall of Maggie Brown

Winter’s Edge

Catspaw II

Hand in Glove

Catspaw

Tangled Lies
/ reprint in
Men Made in America #11

Now You See Him

Special Gifts

Break the Night

Against the Wind

N
OVELLAS

The Wicked House of Rohan

Risk the Night

Married to It
(prequel to
Fire and Ice
)

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2013 Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

www.apub.com

ISBN-13: 9781477849118
ISBN-10: 1477849114

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911410

For Sabra Jones and the Greensboro Art Alliance and Residency, with thanks for all the fun and sheer joy you’ve brought to my life

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

Somerset, 1869

M
ADDY
R
USSELL CURLED UP
on the window seat in Nanny Gruen’s tiny, spotlessly clean cottage on the very edge of the former Russell estate in Somerset, looking at the drizzling mist of a spring day. Somewhere, a mile away, lay their country house, Renwick, a place of considerable beauty that had once been her haven when things were bad. Things were bad now, but the house was no longer theirs. It had reverted to the Dark Viscount, as her younger sister, Sophie, liked to call him, and if he knew that two of the daughters of the house’s former owner were hiding at their old nanny’s cottage he’d soon put a stop to it. In fact, he didn’t even have to honor the gift of this small house to the Russells’ retired retainer, but so far he had. He could always change his mind.

Nanny Gruen sat across from her on the faded sofa, her eyes focused on her needlework, but Maddy had no illusion that this was an easy silence.

“You’re the most hardheaded girl I’ve ever known,” Nanny Gruen said. “What happened to my sweet little Maddy?” she added plaintively, finally looking up at her former charge, all five foot seven of her.

Maddy grimaced. “Your sweet little Maddy had a father who absconded with a huge sum of money and then abandoned his three daughters, leaving us penniless, disgraced. I’ve been deserted by my worthless fiancé, my older sister, Bryony, has disappeared with only a cryptic note, my younger sister does nothing but complain, and I refuse to sit around and wait for things to happen, not any longer. Since Bryony’s run off with the Earl of Kilmartyn, it’s going to be up to us to find out who framed our father and murdered him, because that fall from the cliffs in Dartmoor was no accident. And right now it’s going to be up to me.”

“And what is it you’re thinking of doing, missy?” her old nursemaid demanded. “Running off and getting into trouble, that’s what I call it.”

“We are already in trouble, Nanny,” Maddy said in a deliberately calm voice. “And sitting around on my posterior isn’t going to make things any better.”

“Miss Madeleine!” Nanny said, shocked. “A lady doesn’t talk about her… her limbs.”

“My posterior is not a limb, Nanny. It’s my backside.”

Nanny shrieked, putting her hands over her ears. “Your sister will hear you.”

“I did hear her, Nanny,” Sophie called from the tiny kitchen where she was currently experimenting with scones. “And she’s right.”

“Don’t you be using such language, Miss Sophia,” Nanny said sharply.

Sophie appeared in the doorway. She was coated with flour—Sophie didn’t consider her cooking adventures successful unless she ended up wearing half of her ingredients. “You don’t really think you’re going to follow Bryony.”

“Of course not!” Maddy said. “We can assume the Earl of Kilmartyn had nothing to do with Father’s disgrace and death since Bryony appears to have run off with him instead of finding proof of his guilt. That leaves Captain Morgan and Viscount Griffiths.”

BOOK: Never Trust a Pirate
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