The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(11)

“And why not?” she countered. “I am not a slave to habit. Simple folk live for truth, hoeing a living out of the earth to respectable success. We cannot be tamed. I will not be tamed.”

“You appear to know exactly what you want.” He winked, damn him. “A rare thing you must hold on to at all costs.”

“Well . . .” She lowered her voice and pointed to the hearth, prepared to entrust Mr. Hunt with one truth. “Do ye see that couple there?”

Mr. Hunt and his companions, Jarvis—the man who’d paid for their rooms—and another man named McHugh, all nodded.

“Frank gave the two of them quite a fright earlier. Bitter, tired men like Frank Tolfrey come in night after night, but it’s people like the Lovells I want to frequent the Roost.” She bit her lower lip, hoping he’d understand that it was respectable business she sought. “This inn will never be credible until the violence that occurs within it stops.”

“I agree,” he said.

“Ye do?” She blinked as she studied him, not expecting his acquiescence so quickly. “Well, as long as we are agreed, I am content.” She lifted the pitcher, her mind swirling with doubt, despite her words. “Did Frank give ye any trouble out there?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” He glanced up at her, and their gazes locked. “By the way, Miss, Frank promised not to bother you again.”

“Did he now?” Her softening opinion of Mr. Hunt immediately mutinied. She narrowed her eyes. “The Frank I know would never promise such a thing.”

“Those weren’t his . . . exact words, but more or less.” Mr. Hunt grinned mischievously as he lifted his tankard.

Suspicious, she filled his mug. “I’d be a fool not to thank ye for your interference, as much as it wasn’t needed.”

“Any man would have done the same.”

Oh, but he was wrong.

“Need I remind ye,” she began, “that ye are the only man who stepped forward.”

“Several other men tried, but you warned them off,” he reminded her, cocking a brow.

So he knew she hadn’t wanted aid . . . “Then why didn’t ye allow me to handle Frank?”

“What can I say? I could not sit idle while you were being threatened. A Christian act, nothing more.”

A Christian act?

She tsked, busying herself attending their table. “If that’s what ye call it, more men in this inn should attend Talland Church.”

Brawny, handsome, protective, and concerned about how her money was spent . . . Here was a man she could grow to love. But could she trust him?

“Do you attend, Miss?” Mr. Hunt asked.

“Attend?” She fought back her suspicions. What were they talking about? Ah, Talland Church. “I do.”

She dropped her gaze and studied his hands. A man’s hands told much about him and by force of habit she’d studied many, rarely being proven wrong. Mr. Hunt’s were large, his fingers long and lean—sailor’s hands. One in particular bore a scar jutting out from beneath his sleeve, angling all the way to the first knuckle of his forefinger before curling around to the underside of his left palm. Had he gotten his fingers tangled in a fisherman’s net? She looked at his right hand, noting he had blotched, reddened knuckles. They hadn’t been like that earlier.

“Did ye and Frank brawl in the courtyard?”

The demon strutted about Looe proclaiming to be the best fighter in the hamlet. If Mr. Hunt had defeated Frank, that meant the man would surely be raring to get even after falling so low.

“As I said, Frank promised not to bother you again.”

Oh dear. No good can come from this.

And yet knowing Mr. Hunt had fought for her honor set butterflies to flight in her belly. She studied him carefully as he lifted his tankard, taking a drink.

Was Mr. Hunt a heroic man straight out of one of Lady Chloe’s gothic romance books? With his rugged looks, size, and demeanor, he certainly resembled heroes from the books the marchioness had gifted her the past few months—The Castle of Otranto and The Monk. She’d devoured them both at her leisure more than once.

She was a quick study, too. And after working in the tavern for nigh on ten years, she could read a man’s character fairly well. Mr. Hunt, however, was hard to read. His eyes radiated something altogether different from the other men present—a promise that all would be well if she would trust him. But only a fool trusted a stranger, and even family members betrayed one another. Trust had to be earned, and it was even harder to keep.

“I owe ye my thanks.” She forced a smile, hating the nervous rattle that seeped into her voice.

“Accepted,” Mr. Hunt said, bowing his head like a nobleman.

Suddenly nervous that the slightest action he made drew a tremulous sigh from her, she asked, “How long did ye say ye needed rooms at the Roost?”

“Until our ship comes in,” he answered, lifting his tankard for a refill. “Good ale.”

“Thank ye,” she managed to say without a quiver in her voice as she filled his pewter cup again. “I brew it on the grounds.”

“And one of the reasons I—we,” Hunt corrected as he glanced at Jarvis and McHugh, “keep coming back.”

Oriana’s heart beat like the wings of a seabird caught on a blustery current, fluttering in her breast whenever she looked at Mr. Hunt. A bear of a man, he was muscular and fit. He was also a curious man.