Read Online Falling for the Pirate by Amber Lin - Free Book Online
Authors: Amber Lin
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Historical, Regency, Historical Romance, London (England), regency england, Pirate, Entangled Scandalous, Amnesia, pirate ship
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and dishes clinking came from below. The main floor appeared to be unoccupied, but then, a maid might not make a sound. She would be silent, stealthy…
Like Julia.
A sitting room looked plush and inviting—and completely lacking in information. Who was this man? Could she trust him? And if she couldn’t, where else could she go?
Ah, his study. She stepped inside, eyes widening. Her breath caught as she looked around. The room had clearly been intended as both library and office. Two leather chairs with steep backs faced an unlit hearth.
Bookshelves unfurled to the edges of every wall, flanking the mantelpiece and the window, but only one of them contained books. The others were filled with…vases and statuettes. Draperies and cloth-embroidered frames. An engraved silver box open and overflowing with pearls and other jewels. This was where Nate kept his treasure.
Looking about, it felt like seeing him from the inside, slipping behind his glass door and watching the gears move. She could hear the tick-tock beat of his heart and smell the wood shavings. But it didn’t bring her any closer to knowing him. What did all these things mean? Why did he keep it all here, in this one room?
Most of the books on the single shelf appeared to be related to shipbuilding and navigation. There were a few gothic novels that made her smile. So, her pirate liked to read about dreary castles and mysterious demons. That humanized him, somehow, finding something he did for entertainment. Despite the extravagance in his bookshelves and the loftiness of his captaincy, he was just a man, after all.
One book caught her eye. The Monk. She hadn’t thought Captain Bowen a pious man. She pulled the clothbound book from the shelf. Small gold lettering displayed the title, along with a subtitle. A Romance. Her brows flew up. Indeed, she hadn’t thought of him as a romantic, either.
She flipped the book open.
And Oh! That was such a breast! The Moonbeams darting full upon it enabled the Monk to observe its dazzling whiteness. His eye dwelt upon the beauteous Orb.
She snapped the volume shut with a gasp, catching her finger between the pages. Beauteous orbs? What had she just read? She had no idea, but it seemed very wicked.
She peeked back at the page to be sure.
A raging fire shot through every limb: the blood boiled in his veins, and a thousand wild wishes bewildered his imagination.
Embarrassment inflamed her cheeks. Well! This was certainly neither a religious tome nor a romance. At least, not one of a type she had ever read.
Imagining her host reading these provocative words started a different kind of heat within her, lower than her cheeks. Much lower. Her limbs felt suddenly weightless, and quite on their own, her fingers turned the page.
‘Hold!’ He cried in a hurried faultering voice; ‘I can resist no longer! Stay, then, Enchantress; Stay for my destruction!’
Julia should have been scandalized. She was scandalized. But all she could think was that she understood all too well. A raging fire through every limb. A thousand wild wishes . The ideas were so foreign, and yet they so perfectly described the exact sensation of her body. Was this the magic of this book? Did it engender such heat in every reader?
In the captain?
Of course, it occurred to her that her breasts were…not particularly orb-like. She had passed for a boy, after all. Hers was not a body to inspire desperate passion in a man.
God. Why was she even thinking about this? It was the book’s fault. This was why such works had been derided by her schoolmasters. A memory came back to her, of the schoolroom. Her friend had been caught with a forbidden book, and she’d been caned for it. Low-brow, the master had called it. Pedestrian. The Devil’s work.
Like this book.
But instead of putting it back on the shelf, Julia slipped it into a tied-knot pocket of her petticoats. Like a thief. No. She would return the book. It would never leave his house. Seeing it
Like Julia.
A sitting room looked plush and inviting—and completely lacking in information. Who was this man? Could she trust him? And if she couldn’t, where else could she go?
Ah, his study. She stepped inside, eyes widening. Her breath caught as she looked around. The room had clearly been intended as both library and office. Two leather chairs with steep backs faced an unlit hearth.
Bookshelves unfurled to the edges of every wall, flanking the mantelpiece and the window, but only one of them contained books. The others were filled with…vases and statuettes. Draperies and cloth-embroidered frames. An engraved silver box open and overflowing with pearls and other jewels. This was where Nate kept his treasure.
Looking about, it felt like seeing him from the inside, slipping behind his glass door and watching the gears move. She could hear the tick-tock beat of his heart and smell the wood shavings. But it didn’t bring her any closer to knowing him. What did all these things mean? Why did he keep it all here, in this one room?
Most of the books on the single shelf appeared to be related to shipbuilding and navigation. There were a few gothic novels that made her smile. So, her pirate liked to read about dreary castles and mysterious demons. That humanized him, somehow, finding something he did for entertainment. Despite the extravagance in his bookshelves and the loftiness of his captaincy, he was just a man, after all.
One book caught her eye. The Monk. She hadn’t thought Captain Bowen a pious man. She pulled the clothbound book from the shelf. Small gold lettering displayed the title, along with a subtitle. A Romance. Her brows flew up. Indeed, she hadn’t thought of him as a romantic, either.
She flipped the book open.
And Oh! That was such a breast! The Moonbeams darting full upon it enabled the Monk to observe its dazzling whiteness. His eye dwelt upon the beauteous Orb.
She snapped the volume shut with a gasp, catching her finger between the pages. Beauteous orbs? What had she just read? She had no idea, but it seemed very wicked.
She peeked back at the page to be sure.
A raging fire shot through every limb: the blood boiled in his veins, and a thousand wild wishes bewildered his imagination.
Embarrassment inflamed her cheeks. Well! This was certainly neither a religious tome nor a romance. At least, not one of a type she had ever read.
Imagining her host reading these provocative words started a different kind of heat within her, lower than her cheeks. Much lower. Her limbs felt suddenly weightless, and quite on their own, her fingers turned the page.
‘Hold!’ He cried in a hurried faultering voice; ‘I can resist no longer! Stay, then, Enchantress; Stay for my destruction!’
Julia should have been scandalized. She was scandalized. But all she could think was that she understood all too well. A raging fire through every limb. A thousand wild wishes . The ideas were so foreign, and yet they so perfectly described the exact sensation of her body. Was this the magic of this book? Did it engender such heat in every reader?
In the captain?
Of course, it occurred to her that her breasts were…not particularly orb-like. She had passed for a boy, after all. Hers was not a body to inspire desperate passion in a man.
God. Why was she even thinking about this? It was the book’s fault. This was why such works had been derided by her schoolmasters. A memory came back to her, of the schoolroom. Her friend had been caught with a forbidden book, and she’d been caned for it. Low-brow, the master had called it. Pedestrian. The Devil’s work.
Like this book.
But instead of putting it back on the shelf, Julia slipped it into a tied-knot pocket of her petticoats. Like a thief. No. She would return the book. It would never leave his house. Seeing it
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