The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(9)

Lies.

But who could blame them? The ruse had been meant to prevent anyone from knowing they’d actually come from the Black Regent’s ship where it had been caught in a battle against Charles’s ship, the Viper, on the coast below.

Saints preserve her, nothing could change the past. What was done was done.

Rigby and William Seaton stood abruptly and said something to their brother Max, still seated at their table. Max nodded at the two men, who then waved her a fare-thee-well before slipping quietly out of the Roost on Watty’s heels.

She rubbed her hands on her apron and zigzagged her way through the crowded tables, refilling empty tankards outstretched from customers’ hands. As she routinely went about her business, her gaze wandered to three fishermen who sat at a table near the door. The men had let rooms at the Roost for the very first time that night, though they had visited the inn on occasion.

One of the three men, a burly, blond fisherman named John Hunt, caught her eye every time he was present, making her question her appearance, her actions, every word she spoke. Vanity wasn’t in her nature. Oddly, however, whenever Mr. Hunt was near, she felt awkward, tense, and critically aware of her appearance. Unnerved that she’d be sleeping under the same roof with the man who aroused the questionable pitter-pattering of her heartbeat, she wiped her hand on her apron and inhaled a slow breath before approaching their table.

Men frequently tried to deceive her, using flattery and their physical bodies to tempt her. They’d compliment her ale and her pies, and she’d probably heard every argument in existence about why a particular man should be the one to bed her. Oriana had rebuffed them all. No one had intrigued her as much as Mr. Hunt with his striking blue eyes and addictive charm, including the Black Regent. But given her upbringing, she was not so far gone as to entertain fancy. No good could come from a relationship between herself and any man, not as long as Charles was still alive.

Reminding herself to quit fantasizing about tall, handsome strangers, Oriana felt a hand clamp down on her arm from behind.

“Not. So. Fast.”

Ale sloshed over the rim of her pitcher, spilling to the floor as she sucked in an all-too-familiar breath of alarm and jerked free.

The fiddles came to a screeching halt.

“Let her go, Tolfrey,” Max Seaton shouted, jumping to his feet.

“Stay out of this, Seaton!” Frank Tolfrey said. “Play yer fiddle, old crowder. The barkeep and me have unfinished business.” He yanked Oriana closer, daring any other man to intervene. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

She flinched as Frank’s rancid breath fanned over her face and then nodded at Max to assure him she could handle Frank, suppressing the shame that flowed through her. How dare Frank cause a scene in front of her customers!

“I’ve warned ye not to touch me, Francis Tolfrey,” she growled.

“My name is Frank and ye know it, wench. No one, not even me own mother, calls me Francis.”

“Ye have a mother?” she taunted, knowing exactly how the use of his given name would infuriate him. An enraged man made mistakes. “And here I thought a goat birthed ye.”

Frank turned her in his arms and seized her by the jaw. “Watch yer mouth.”

“Let her go,” a loud, demanding voice shouted.

“I told ye to stay out of this, Seaton.” Frank softened his grip, caressing her throbbing jaw. “If I didn’t ache for all the things your lovely tongue could do to me, I’d rip. It. Out.”

“What good would it do ye then, eh, Frank?” she asked.

Taken aback, the miner momentarily loosened his hold on her. Every muscle in Oriana’s body tensed, and she slammed the pitcher over his hard head. “This is all you’ll ever get from me.”

Frank shook his head to clear it as her customers cheered. Then he laughed, the sickening sound stoking a wildfire inside her. “Ye don’t scare me.”

Chairs screeched against the floorboards as several more men stood, clearly itching to come forward.

“I can handle this,” she said, eager to prove to Girard and O’Malley that she didn’t need their interference. She stomped on Frank’s foot, forcing him to release her, and then pulled a dagger out from the hidden sheath in her bodice and sliced off one of his coat buttons before he could reach out for her again. “The next piece will be made of flesh. Now, get out of my inn, ye bucca boo! I don’t serve devils here.”

“Including yer brother?” A victorious expression transformed Frank’s face, making her wonder if he had anything to do with Charles.

I have eyes and ears everywhere, he had written. Was Frank one of her brother’s spies?

She stilled instantly and glanced around the tavern, studying the concerned, expectant faces watching their exchange. By the saints, any one of them could be Charles’s informant.

“You’re a fool, Frank,” she said.

“Am I? Charles will be back, and when he returns, who do ye think he’ll put in yer place?”

Her nerve endings caught fire, fear coursing down her spine, making her temper flare out of control. “Get out!”

Frank blinked twice. Then, gifted with the sense of a loon, he lunged toward her.

“Enough!” A man suddenly appeared and grabbed Frank’s collar from behind, yanking him back to the point of almost choking him.