Miss Minerva's Pirate Mishap by Maggie Dallen (to read list .TXT) 📗

like your idea of sailing to America next. Finding a place to call home along the eastern coast.”

He squeezed her tight. “I think I have just the spot for us.”

The bay he had in mind was perfect, really. A place where they could build a home, start a family, and perhaps create a new business in the shipping industry.

Even better, he’d heard that there was a movement underway there, a network of people helping runaway slaves escape to the north. He could help with that. He and Minerva. After all, he was ready to find his home, but his Minerva would be restless without some sort of brave new adventure on the horizon. He smiled down at this woman who seemed to have been tailor made for him. To fit into his life and into his heart.

She sighed, her head coming to rest against his heart. There, too, she fit so perfectly. “So I shall be Mrs. Haversaw then.”

He winced. He loved the delight in her voice, but the name did not quite sit right. “Min, there’s something I should tell you about my name.

“That it is not your real name?” She tilted her head back, and her dark eyes glinted with mischief.

“Precisely.”

She stopped and turned to face him. “What is your real name, then?”

He scratched at the back of his neck. It was time to tell her all. It could not be put off any longer. “Er, you see...”

She sank to the ground and patted the grass beside her. The sea spread before them, open and welcoming. Her expression, too, was open. “Come. Tell me your secrets.” She smiled sweetly. “And I shall tell you mine.”

He laughed as he sat beside her. “Very well. Once upon a time there was a young lord—”

“A lord?” Her eyes were wide with surprise.

He arched his brows. “Are you going to continue to interrupt with every new reveal? I can tell you now, this story will take a century to complete if you do.”

She laughed and made a show of pressing her lips together, waving a hand for him to continue. He turned to face the sea as he told her about a miserable childhood, and a brother who was neglected as the second son. He told her about the shipping operation that his father owned and how he’d allowed his restless eldest son—his rightful heir—to learn about the trade by going off to sea.

He gave her the short version of his time abroad, glossing over the worst of the brutality he’d witnessed, about the change it wrought in him, and how he’d realized that he’d wanted a different life than the privileged one he’d been raised to inherit. He’d wanted to seek justice with his own two hands.

“And so you left,” she said, her voice little more than a breath on the breeze.

He nodded.

“And you...” She blinked a few times and then gave her head a little shake. “You were meant to be an earl.”

He winced. “Are you sorely disappointed that I gave it up?”

She burst out in a loud laugh as she leaned into him, her shoulders shaking. “Disappointed? I would never have even met you if you were an earl.” She pulled back to meet his gaze. “And you would not be the man I fell in love with if you had lived any other life.”

He let out another sigh of relief he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.

She shook her head. “I just cannot believe that the daughter of a woman who was believed to be lost at sea is now marrying a man who chose the same fate.”

He eyed her closely, watching to see if there was pain behind those words that he wasn’t hearing. She’d told him about her mother’s choice to leave them after she’d had another tearful talk with her father on the matter.

There was still more to the story, more that her father hadn’t told her. Of that, she seemed certain. But at least he was finally talking about their mother after nearly a decade of silence on the topic, and that openness seemed to have lifted a weight that had been hanging over the household, Minerva especially.

Today, at least, she seemed to be at peace about her mother. Or at least, as at peace as she could be with questions still unanswered.

“Perhaps it is fate that brought us together. Me to you when you were ready to spread your wings and take flight, and you to me when I was searching for my home,” he said.

She grinned and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “It must be fate.” When she sank back down beside him, she brought her knees up to hug them as he held her tighter to block out the ocean’s breeze.

“Will Sally tell your father if I kiss you now?” he asked.

He was teasing, and she knew it. None of her sisters cared in the slightest if he was an improper suitor. They were all so happy to see her in love, they’d each informed him, that they couldn’t even be too angry that he was stealing her away.

Hattie had informed him that he was the most dashing hero she could imagine for her eldest sister, a point he’d taken great pleasure in pointing out to his sweet Minerva whenever he had the chance.

Minerva shook her head, already tilting her head back for his kiss. When he pressed his lips to hers, it was everything he wanted, and not nearly enough. “I cannot wait until you are my wife. In my arms, and on my ship.”

She pulled back with a sigh. “I am ready, too, love. One day soon as I shall be Mrs.—”

“Not Mrs. Haversaw,” he interrupted.

Her lips hitched to the side. “What shall I call myself then?”

He pulled her close. “Other than my wife, my lady love, my fated mate until the end of time, my—”

“Yes,” she interrupted with a laugh. “What is my name to be if not Haversaw?”

He leaned back and met her gaze. “You decide.”

She