Miss Abigail's Beastly Beau by Maggie Dallen (amazing books to read TXT) 📕

concern. “He’s likely lying,” he reminded her. “Telling us some tall tale for his own reasons.”

But Abigail was shaking her head before he finished speaking. Her next comment was directed at Roger. “In the cave, you’d said ‘she’ll murder me.’”

Roger nodded. “Your mother.” He flinched. “She can be quite terrifying, you know. I’ve heard the stories.”

Abigail shook her head again. “This cannot be true.”

But even Caleb could hear the doubt in her voice. Roger did too, and behind that smugness Caleb caught a flicker of pity.

He heard Abigail’s sharp inhale. No doubt she’d seen it too. That pity, more than anything, had Caleb wavering in his resolution not to believe anything Roger said.

His smugness was easy to dismiss, but this sympathy...

It spoke of honesty.

“Minerva resembles her the most,” Roger said softly. “Same hair color, and the set of their eyes.”

Abigail’s chest rose and fell quickly and Caleb shifted closer, ready to catch her should she faint. But she didn’t. She merely shook her head. “I cannot believe you.”

Roger nodded, as though he expected that. “Why do you think I was so set on wooing your sister?”

Abigail scowled. “Because she is beautiful and kind and good.”

Roger scoffed. “Hardly. She is a little termagant, and her looks pale beside yours and Rebecca’s.”

Abigail advanced a step and held her dagger at heart level. “Do not dare disrespect my sister.”

Roger held his hands up. “Apologies. I was merely trying to explain that my interest in Minerva was not about her, but about getting close to the great pirate queen’s daughter.”

“The great pirate...what?” Abigail clamped her lips together tight.

“Who were your contacts for the stolen goods?” Caleb’s question had Roger’s attention once more on him as he rattled on about a merchant in London. Caleb made note of the name and location to relay to the authorities, but he kept an eye on Abigail. Watched her process Roger’s words, saw her breathe deeply.

He placed a hand on her back and felt his entire world soften with some inexplicable tenderness when she instinctively sank against his side, letting him support her.

His heart threatened to break free of his chest at the intimacy of it. The trust implicit in the subtle half embrace. He needed to get her out of here, far away from Roger.

“If what you say is true, you will need to provide me with dates, locations. Not just unverified tall tales,” Caleb said.

Roger had the gall to look offended again. But at last he huffed dramatically. “Very well.”

“I will talk to the captain—”

“No. You cannot.” Roger’s eyes went wide.

Caleb growled and opened his mouth to explain who exactly was in charge here, when Abigail beat him to it. “If what you say bears any truth, then you will agree that it would be in everyone’s best interests for you to leave these shores—to leave this country. Especially my father’s.”

Caleb was impressed by the evenness of her tone. The practicality of what she said. Even Roger seemed to be taken aback by her prosaic response. Then he nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But if he sends his men after me, I am gone.” He looked between the two of them meaningfully. “I will not wait around here for her people to find me, and I won’t wind up on the gallows, either.”

After agreeing to a new meeting time and location once they’d had a chance to speak with her father, they let Roger go.

“I could still kill him, you know,” Caleb murmured when he was nearly out of sight. “This could all be over and done if he left this earth...and his words with him.”

Abigail sighed as she turned to face him, handing over the dagger as she patted his arm. “I know you could, but I don’t think you would.”

He glared down at her. Her answering smile, small and rueful, made his heart melt into a puddle behind his ribcage.

“You might have had to do some dastardly deeds in your day, Caleb, but you should know by now that I know you better than that. You are good and kind.”

He opened his mouth to protest, bells of alarm sounding in the back of his brain, not just because of her words, but the affection he saw in her eyes when she said it.

It was his fault for kissing her. That was bad enough. But he couldn’t allow her to develop feelings, not when she was well on her way to making a proper life for herself.

A life that held no space for him.

He ought to have said something right then and there, but then she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest and the words died in his throat.

His hand moved up to rub her back soothingly in circles as if his limbs had minds of their own.

“Despite appearances, you are kind.” He felt her back rise and fall with a weary sigh. “And despite all odds...my mother might very well be a pirate.”

Chapter 11

Abigail wasn’t certain what she’d expected to come from confronting her father, but it wasn’t this.

Her father’s silence felt interminable. From the kitchen, the sound of dishes clattering echoed. From the sitting room where Hattie had withdrawn when Abigail had asked for a moment alone with their father, there was nothing but the silence of a girl reading.

And in the dining room where she sat across from her father...

Nothing.

“Well?” The word burst forth when she could endure it no longer. “Don’t you have anything to say in response to Roger’s accusations?”

Her father rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Caleb had walked her home and it wasn’t until after she’d bid him adieu that she’d realized she’d missed her chance to talk to him about her feelings for him.

And hopefully, his feelings for her.

But her mind had been too full with her family’s affairs, and how she would present Roger’s allegations.

But the more time that passed from the moment she left Caleb to the moment she was able to request a private word with her father, the more