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

He shrugged. “I cannot very well take up my real name again, not without causing quite a bit of trouble. So you decide. What name would you like to take when we start our new lives together?”

She pursed her lips and looked out to the sea. “I should like to take a piece of home with me when we leave.” She cast him a sidelong look. “And yet I want a new name to mark a new life.”

He arched his brows in question.

“Billingham,” she said with a decisive nod.

“The name of this town?”

She nodded again with an impish grin. “I will take my home with me as we start a new life.”

He tipped his head back with a loud laugh that had her laughing as well. They’d been doing a lot of that lately, and if he had his way, he’d be making her smile and laugh until the day he died. This woman deserved every happiness, and he meant to give it to her. That, and the world.

“I cannot wait until Abigail returns from Caleb’s place so I might tell her that I am soon to be Mrs. Billingham.” She grinned up at him. “She will have such a laugh.”

“She is at Caleb’s? Again?” He couldn’t quite hide his amusement at his friend’s expense. Something told him that change of heart Marcus had warned him of would occur sooner rather than later.

“Mmm.” Minerva shifted so she was resting against him. “It seems Abigail convinced your friend that he ought to learn how to read. She is teaching him.”

He blinked down at her, temporarily stunned. “To...read?”

She nodded. “And of course, Abigail is eager for any excuse to repay him for his help with Roger.”

“Of course.” He could definitely not hide his laughter now.

Minerva’s brows drew together in question. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing, it is just—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Never mind.”

She opened her mouth to say something but they both turned back to look at the house when Hattie’s voice called out from the doorway. But it was Sally she was shouting for.

Sally stopped what she’d been doing—picking medicinal herbs, it looked like, from a garden nearby. “A what?” she shouted back.

“An earl!” Hattie’s eyes were wide with excitement, and he and Minerva shared a look of bemusement.

“What earl? Are they talking about you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I do not think so.”

Hattie planted her hands on her hips, clearly annoyed that Sally was not sprinting into action. “You have a visitor,” she shouted. “The Earl of Elwood is here to see you.”

Sally frowned in confusion, heading back inside as Hattie came outside to take over as chaperone, already slipping a book out of her apron pocket as she walked toward a bench beside the garden.

Truly, Marcus could not ask for worse chaperones. What a lucky man he was.

Minerva’s eyes were wide with surprise as she turned to him. “Another earl is here?” She started to laugh. “Two earls in our home in one day? This is too much.”

He grinned. “Ah, but I was only meant to be an earl. Alistair has that honor now.”

Minerva shook her head. “Oh, no. I do not believe you were ever truly meant to be an earl.” She leaned in close. “You were meant to be a pirate. My pirate.”

“And you, my love...” He closed the gap between them to steal another kiss. “You were meant for me.”

Epilogue

Minerva stared down at the contents of the chest as if staring might make it disappear.

Marcus’s arms wrapped around her waist as he joined her at their new bayside dock. “Have you decided what you wish to do with your...” He nodded toward the chest. “Your mother’s present?”

She winced. This ‘present’ had come as a surprise to them both. They hadn’t discovered the chest full of gold and treasures in the hull of Marcus’s ship until they’d been halfway across the Atlantic, far too late to turn around.

And even if they had, she would have been gone by then.

That had likely been her mother’s plan. Not that her note gave much away. Just a handful of sentences after nearly ten years of silence.

Minerva, dearest, I hope you and your sisters know that you are always in my heart. Please don’t hate me too much. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you girls. I trust you’ll know what to do with this, and how best to get it to your sisters. You’ve never failed to make me proud as a sister and as a woman. Love you all more than you will ever know. Your Mother.

“I am not certain how to tell my sisters about this,” she admitted. That, more than anything, was the source of her confusion.

She felt Marcus shake his head before placing a kiss against her temple. “I cannot believe I did not make the connection sooner.”

As soon as they’d read the note that had sat atop the treasure chest, her new husband had put the pieces together. That is why you looked familiar, he’d said. He’d proceeded to tell her about a female he’d encountered on his journeys. A female pirate. He’d given his head a shake. I knew you reminded me of someone, but I could not place it.

Now she patted his hands which were clasped together at her waist. “It was not your fault. But my father...” She glanced over her shoulder. “He needs to know. If he doesn’t already.”

Marcus frowned. “I cannot imagine that your father knows his wife is behind a ring of pirates who were smuggling goods through his town, beneath his very nose.”

She heaved a weary sigh. There were so many questions still left unanswered, but she believed her father knew more than he’d ever let on.

But here in their new seaside town, so far from home... She sighed. “I will have to get a message to my sisters.”

He gave a little grunt of acknowledgement as they both stared as though hypnotized by the gold before