Page 1 of A Prince Among Pirates
Part I
One
MARCH 1700(ISH)
It’s not that I mislike breasts. I love breasts, but they are so muchwork! Why must they be caged behind layers of silk and whalebone, with thousands of tiny, tedious laces holding everything together? By the time I reach my prize, I’ve already lost interest. It is far less effort, not to mention more discreet, to tug open the lacing on the placket at the front of a pair of breeches. Which is how I came to be tucked away in the candleless dark of my father’s study with my hand down Digby Hale’s trousers at my own engagement party.
I know what you’re thinking: Digby Hale is an appalling name. Well, he’s rather an appalling lad as well. I have never found myself attracted to his nondescript appearance, nor his damp-cloth personality.
Nevertheless, he is a warm body and an eager mouth, and I amverydrunk.
Still, the more time I spend crushed between Digby and the painstakingly categorized books on law and the glorious monarchy behind me, the less appealing I find him. It’s almost a relief to hear my father’s best attempt at hiding his fury as he calls for me from somewhere deeper in the house.
“Christopher-Henry!”
I absolutely detest the way he says my name. Though, in all fairness, I detest my name in general: Christopher-Henry Mortimer Davenport. Yes, you read that right. I could say I am grateful to have not been named Digby Hale—but only just.
I shove Digby back a step. (A bit unkind perhaps, but hedidjust bite my lip, and I loathe rough play.) There is something wet on my fingertip as I wipe the corner of my mouth, but in the dark I can’t tell whether it’s blood or saliva.
“Kit—” he starts.
“Christopher-Henry!”my wretched father howls again.
I groan and turn my head towards the door. “I have to go. Don’t follow me out.”
“Your name is Christopher?”
Digby likely can’t see the way my eyes roll. “No, it’s Christopher-Henry,” I whisper as I frantically lace up the front of my trousers. “We went to Eton together, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’ve never heard your Christian name before.”
“Shut up, my father will hear us!” I hiss, swatting away his attempt to reach for me as I step over to the door. “Wait a few minutes before coming out, unless you want everyone to know what you were doing.”
“Whatwewere doing,” he whispers back.
Annoying.
In lieu of a response, I smooth my shirt and waistcoat and step out into the well-lit hallway. I’m irritated to taste metal. The bastard broke skin when he bit me—I hate that. I wipe the blood off my lip with the cuff of my navy coat sleeve just as my father rounds the corner.
He isn’t a big man, my father, but heistaller than I, with wide-set shoulders and an intimidating scowl permanently affixed to his pale face. He has thick brown eyebrows, a jaw and nose that are both long and square, and dirty-blond hair tucked somewhere under that awful white wig, and I thank my good fortune every day that I look nothing like him. Though I wouldn’t mind if I were a bit taller.
He towers over me and gestures furiously for me to start walking with himimmediately. Despite the way my innards twist, I offer him my most charming smile as I step forward and allow him to corral me towards the ballroom. “I seem to have walked into a door and split my lip. I ought to tend to it.”
He growls in my direction, but that is all he can do with so many people around—not that he has ever laid a hand on me—or everwould. “If you bring shame upon me or the marquess, I will give you a thrashing so thorough, you won’t sit for a fortnight!” he snarls from behind me. “I won’t have your cursed existence tarnishing this family any more than it already has. It’s time for you to grow up and take responsibility for your actions, Christopher-Henry. You have already outstayedyour welcome with that ludicrous ‘gap year’ stunt you pulled.”
I don’t answer him. I might have laughed at the reminder of my impromptu gap year, but the comment about my being cursed sours the memory. People are turning to watch us enter the ballroom now, so I let my smile widen into a grin and wave my hand with a flourish. “Forgive my tardiness,” I announce to the room as my father falls into step beside me. “I got lost; it’ssucha big house.”
My father makes a show of rolling his eyes as Elizabeth bustles to my side, my father’s perfect, lily-white replacement child on her hip. I do my best not to scowl at my half sister as she sucks on her entire hand. Disgusting. It isn’t Victoria’s fault she was born, but I hate her just the same. I swat away Elizabeth’s attempts to wipe the blood from my lip, and once again rub the silk of my cuff against the cut, much to her dismay. “I’m fine, Elizabeth.”
“Christopher-Henry, call meMother,” she pleads in a whisper, a false smile plastered across her pretty face. She’s barely one and twenty herself—only a few years older than I am—and already round with my father’s next replacement child.
I don’t mind Elizabeth. In fact, I even ratherlikeher… but I simply cannot tolerate her desire to be my mother. Ihada mother—myownmother—and though my father has done his best to erase her from history, his efforts to keep me from learning about her have only heightened my desire to know more.
Elizabeth will never be her.
“But you aren’t my mother,” I remind her with an equally false, but far more convincing, smile on my face. Her youth aside,no one would believe her to be my mother anyway. She has milky skin and hair the color of autumn leaves. Her eyes are blue, and she is tall and stately with a smattering of freckles across her narrow nose.
By contrast, my skin is bronze, my eyes large and greenish, my hair nearly black and almost unmanageably thick. I am on the short side of average for my age, which is frustrating, but this is not to say I’m not attractive. I assure you, I am—it would be a waste of time to pretend otherwise—but I look nothing like any member of my living family. It is a source of both contention and relief for my father and me. I imagine looking at me is a constant reminder of my late mother, for I must have got these dashing good looks fromsomewhere.
